To read more please click on this link.

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Dr. Wenjia Li, CSEE EBIQUITY Alum, is a recipient of the 2019 IEEE Region 1 award.

Dr. Li received the Technological Innovation (Academic) Award for technical innovation in applying machine learning and data analytics techniques to a wide variety of research domains such as cyber security, Internet of Things, Intelligent Transportation System, mobile devices, and automated RNA sequencing.

Congratulations, Dr. Li!

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On October 29 and 30 the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation will host Science Unscripted: Conversations with AI Experts, two early evening events at UMBC from 5:00 to 8:00pm that bring together AI experts to discuss how AI will impact our lives. The events will be held in the Fine Arts Recital Hall with doors open at 5:00 prior to the 5:30 start and will conclude with a reception starting at 7:00pm with food and drinks. Both events are free, but registration is requested.

These events are a part of the NSTMF’s Science Unscripted program. Through the SU program, the Foundation is building an inclusive coalition of inspired STEM students. By highlighting voices often left unheard in the STEM community, we show audiences that there is no “right” way to be a trailblazer in science and technology. Each evening, attendees will have the chance to hear about the lives and experiences of the women and men dedicated to creating smart, socially conscious AI.

Tuesday, Oct. 29: Code-ifying AI is a a discussion about AI policy. A panel including UMBC Professor Cynthia Matuszek, Dr. José-Marie Griffiths and moderated by Rosario Robinson will examine what it will take to govern AI as well as the implications of incorporating AI into our everyday lives. Register on Eventbright.

Wednesday, Oct. 30: Decoding Bias in AI is a panel discussion about implicit bias and how we can create more socially conscious AI with UMBC Professor James Foulds, Loretta Cheeks, Emmanuel Johnson and moderator Deborah Kariuki. Implicit bias remains one of the most prevalent concerns about incorporating AI into the mainstream, and our panel is poised to deliberate the ethics and possible solutions to this issue. Register on Eventbright.

The events will be webcast live with closed-captions on Facebook, and the full event videos will be available on our YouTube channel afterward. Webcast audiences are encouraged to participate in the conversation using #ScienceUnscripted on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Both events are no-cost, equal access (ADA compliant), and open to the public. Save your seat on Eventbrite for day one at Code-ifying AI and for day two at Decoding Bias in AI.

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Information security firms, LogRhythm and Jazz Networks, in conjunction with ISSA Central Maryland are hosting an event at the National Electronic Museum (1745 W Nursery Rd, Linthicum Heights, MD 21090) to celebrate National Cybersecurity Month with two speaking series and private tours of the Electronic Museum. 

This event will take place on Wednesday October 16th at 5 pm. Registration is required. See description below for more details on the guest speakers and the topics they will be presenting.

Please Note:

• Deadline to register is October 14th at 5 PM via EventBrite link below:

• https://www.eventbrite.com/e/issa-central-md-meeting-october-16th-tickets-71162128843?ref=elink

• Guest tickets: No charge for guests for this meeting

Presentation One Brought to You by LogRhythm

Topic: Security Operations Maturity Model (SOMM)

SOMM explores how to assess and evolve the principle programs of the security operations center (SOC): threat monitoring, threat hunting, threat investigation, and incident response. LogRhythm developed the Threat Lifecycle Management (TLM) framework to help organizations ideally align technology, people, and process in support of these programs. The TLM framework defines the critical security operations technological capabilities and workflow processes that are vital to realize an efficient and effective SOC. LogRhythm’s SOMM helps organizations measure the effectiveness of their security operations, and to mature their security operations capabilities. Using our TLM framework, the SOMM provides a practical guide for organizations that wish to optimally reduce their mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR) — thereby dramatically improving their resilience to cyberthreats.

Speaker: Darren Cathey, Sr. Systems Engineer, LogRhythm

Darren Cathey has several decades of experience in programming, operating systems, and applications security. His multi-functional experience in engineering, marketing and sales lends itself well to supporting both SMB and Enterprise customers in the Mid-Atlantic territory as a Sr. Systems Engineer. Past experience includes positions with HP, Wind River Systems, Arxan, Vormetric and Varonis.

Presentation Two Brought to You by Jazz Networks

Topic: Taking a holistic approach to an insider threat program

This presentation will provide insider threat mitigation strategies for every phase of the employment life cycle, including pre-employment screening; ongoing insider threat and security training; leveraging tools like Jazz Networks for user activity monitoring, and finally what to watch out for when an employee is leaving the organization. We will share anecdotes from public and private sector service experience, highlighting vulnerable areas of the employee life cycle where an insider can become an active threat. We will also provide a brief demonstration of the Jazz Networks insider threat and detection platform.

Speaker: Charles Finfrock, Senior Threat Investigator, Tesla

Charles Finfrock is a Senior Threat Investigator in Tesla’s Security Intelligence Department, the team responsible for protecting Tesla’s Intellectual Property and confidential business information from internal and external threats. Prior to joining Tesla, Charles spent 18 years as an operations officer in the Central Intelligence Agency. Charles is also the head of Insider Threat at the Washington DC based, Cyber Intelligent Partners, a training and education company focused on helping companies develop programs to counter cyber threats, regional threats, and insider threats.

Speaker: Alex Price, Account Executive for Jazz Networks.

At Jazz Networks, Alex focuses on educating organizations on the risks associated with insider threat, helps them deploy solutions which will increase visibility and control, and finally, works on operationalizing insider threat programs so that the entire organization helps form a human perimeter

Lockheed Martin Distinguished Speaker Series

How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives

Dr. Alfred V. Aho

Lawrence Gussman Professor Emeritus of Computer Science, Columbia University

1:00-2:00pm Thursday, 17 October 2019, ITE 104, UMBC

Dr. Aho will explain what algorithms are and how they have evolved over several millennia. Algorithms are now shaping all aspects of our lives from healthcare to jobs to entertainment. Good algorithms can enrich our lives and unfortunately, bad algorithms can wreak havoc. An important societal question concerning algorithms arises. Should we regulate algorithms so they don’t totally distort our lives, and if so, how should we do it? The fundamental nature of algorithms makes this an unusually difficult challenge.

Alfred Aho joined the Department of Computer Science at Columbia in 1995 and served as Chair of the department from 1995 to 1997, and again in the spring of 2003. He has a B.A.Sc. in Engineering Physics from the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering/Computer Science from Princeton University.

Professor Aho won the Great Teacher Award for 2003 from the Society of Columbia Graduates. In 2014 he was again recognized for teaching excellence by winning the Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award from the Columbia Engineering Alumni Association. He has received the IEEE John von Neumann Medal and is a Member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He shared the 2017 C&C prize with John Hopcroft and Jeff Ullman. He has received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Helsinki, Toronto and Waterloo, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ACM, Bell Labs, and IEEE.

Professor Aho is a co-inventor of AWK, a widely used pattern-matching language. He also wrote the initial versions of the UNIX string pattern-matching utilities egrep and fgrep; fgrep was the first widely used implementation of what is now called the Aho-Corasick algorithm. His research interests include programming languages, compilers, algorithms, software engineering, and quantum computation.

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Lockheed Martin Distinguished Speaker Series

Three Related Takes on Investigating Human-Like Intelligence:
Cognitive Architectures, a Common Model of Cognition, and Dichotomic Maps

Dr. Paul S. Rosenbloom

Professor of Computer Science and Director of Cognitive Architecture Research, Institute for Creative Technologies
University of Southern California

1:00-2:00pm Friday, 11 October 2019, ITE 325b, UMBC

This talk explores a trio of related takes on how to investigate the nature of human-like intelligence. The first concerns cognitive architectures – implemented models of the fixed structure and processes that yield natural and artificial minds – with a drill down to Sigma, an attempt at a deep synthesis across what has been learned over the past four decades on (what started as) high-level symbolic cognitive architectures versus the low-level graphical/network technologies of probabilistic graphical models (such as Bayesian networks) and neural networks. The second concerns a more abstract attempt at specifying a Common Model of Cognition that yields an evolving community consensus over what must be part of any cognitive architecture for human-like intelligence. The final take concerns an even more abstract (and speculative) attempt at understanding more deeply the space of approaches to intelligence – framed as maps resulting from cross products among core cognitive dichotomies – along with how such maps may help to understand and structure the capabilities required for (human-like) intelligence.

Paul Rosenbloom is a professor of computer science in the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) and director for cognitive architecture research at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT). He was a member of USC’s Information Sciences Institute for two decades, ending as its deputy director, and earlier was on the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University and Stanford University (where he had a joint appointment in Computer Science and Psychology). His research concentrates on cognitive architectures (models of the fixed structures and processes that together yield a mind), the Common Model of Cognition (an attempt at developing a community consensus concerning what must be part of a human-like mind), and on computing as a scientific domain (understanding the computing sciences as akin to the physical, life and social sciences). He is a fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), the Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the Cognitive Science Society; and with J. Laird was recently awarded the Herbert A. Simon Prize for Advances in Cognitive Systems. He has served as councilor and conference chair for AAAI; chair of the Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence; and president of the faculty at USC.

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Department of Geography and Environmental Systems

Bringing Social, Information, and Natural Sciences together to Understand Human Transformation of Earth

Dr. Earle Ellis, UMBC

12:00-1:00pm Wednesday, 25 September 2019, ITE 229

The principal investigator of a UMBC-led “massively collaborative” project published in Science Magazine will describe how archaeologists, geographers, and information science came together to show that human societies began transforming earth thousands of years earlier than known by earth scientists; evidence for an earlier anthropocene.

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