Center for Assurance Research and Engineering

Group: CARE Researchers

Robert Osgood

Bob Osgood, Director, MS in Computer Forensics and Data Analytics, Electrical & Computer Engineering. VSE Open Call. Photo by: Ron Aira/Creative Services/George Mason University

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Title: Affiliate Faculty

Phone: 703-993-5443

Groups: CARE Researchers

Mr. Osgood retired from 26 years as an FBI agent specializing in Computer Forensics, Cyber-Crime, Enterprise Criminal Organizations, Espionage and Counter-Terrorism. In the course of his work, he has performed computer forensics research and development and created unique new software tools for computer forensic law enforcement. He has also been employed as Project Director for ManTech Intl. Corp. working in the computer forensic intrusion analysis division.

Mr. Osgood formed the first FBI computer forensics squad in 2000 and was part of the team that executed the first court authorized digital computer intercept. In addition, he is along with Prof. Jeremy Allnutt, the original designers of the CFRS Masters program at George Mason University.

Bernard Schmidt

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Title: Affiliate Faculty

Groups: CARE Researchers

Bernard Schmidt is an Instructor at George Mason University’s College of Engineering and Computing, Data Analytics Engineering master’s program. He is also the Assistant Director of the MS Data Analytics Engineering Program. He joined Mason’s CEC Faculty in the Fall of 2020 from Northern Virginia Community College where he served as a professor of Information Technology as well as an Assistant Dean for Information Technology and Computer Science at the NVCC Manassas campus.

Schmidt was involved with computing and the computing industry for over 35 years prior to joining academia. His early career involved computer operations and programming of IBM mainframes, which then led to researching computer image processing algorithms for multi-sensor-aided target recognition at the Army’s Night Vision Lab. He has subsequently held progressive technology and management positions at a variety of organizations in Northern Virginia including Oracle Complex Systems, Cordant, IBM, ORBCOMM, Sprint, Battelle, and Prison Fellowship Ministries.

In addition to teaching and mentoring, Schmidt has extensive experience in the project management of complex projects ranging from software development to systems and infrastructure engineering.

Larry Medsker

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Title: Director, STEP

Groups: CARE Researchers, CARE STEP Director

STEP Director Larry Medsker is presently Chair of the ACM US Technology Policy Committee, Affiliate Faculty at GMU, Research Professor of Physics at the University of Vermont (UVM). He is also Research Professor in the Human-Technology Collaboration Lab at George Washington University (GWU), and Founding Director of the university’s Master’s Program in Data Science. Medsker serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of AI and Ethics, Associate Editor of Neural Computing and Applications, and Policy Officer for ACM’s Special Interest Group on Artificial Intelligence (SIGAI). He is the author of four books and over 100 publications on neural networks and AI. He is the author of four books and over 100 publications on neural networks and AI.

Serge ADOUAKA NGOIMALE

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Title: Affiliate Faculty, Humphrey Fellow

Groups: CARE Researchers

Dr. Eric Osterweil

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Title: Associate Director, CARE

Phone: (703)-993-4321

Groups: CARE Researchers

Dr. Eric Osterweil is an assistant professor in the Computer Science Department at George Mason University. He studied physics and computer science at the Johns Hopkins University and earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Between these degrees he worked as a professional software engineer for many years, building large-scale production systems at a variety of companies. After earning his doctorate, he conducted research and led investigations as a principal scientist Verisign. While there he studied and published works on inter-domain routing security in the Internet, researched/designed/implemented/operationalized a large-scale DDoS detection and defense system for DNS attacks, and researched the previously unrecogonized threats posed by name collisions with the DNS.

PUBLICATIONS

For a full list of publications, please visit my Google Scholar Page and/or DBLP Page

Dr. Daniel Barbará

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Title: Senior Researcher, CARE

Phone: 703-993-1627

Groups: CARE Researchers

Office: 4420 Engineering Building

Web: cs.gmu.edu/~dbarbara

Daniel Barbará has been researching and applying machine learning and data mining for over 20 years. While teaching in Mason’s Department of Informaton and Software Engineering since 1997, he has lead many research teams as a government contractor (ARMY, DoD, NSF) years.

Background: Before joining academia, Dr. Barbará was a senior scientist in Panasonic Labs, where he led a group of researchers and programmers in several industrial projects, resulting in a number of patented technologies. He also worked for several years as a senior scientist at the Matsushita Information Technology Laboratory. He has previously taught at Princeton University and the Universidad Simon Bolivar in Venezuela.

Dr. Barbará’s deep machine learning background and body of work is well-known and respected through the computer science community.

Education:  PhD, Computer Science, Princeton University; MSE, Computer Science, Princeton University; and BS, Electrical Engineering, Universidad Metropolitana, Caracas, Venezuela.

Dr. Duminda Wijesekera

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Title: Professor, Dept of Cybersecurity Engineering and Computer Science

Phone: 703-993-1578/5030

Groups: CARE Researchers

Office: 436 Research Hall

Web: cs.gmu.edu/~duminda

Duminda Wijesekera is a professor in Mason’s Department of Computer Science, a visiting research scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and co-director of the Center for Assurance Research and Engineering (CARE). In addition, he leads the Laboratory of Radio and RADAR Engineering (RARE), a collaboration between academia, industry and government agencies.

Research: Dr. Wijesekera’s current research addresses three main areas.

1) Security and safety of cyber physical systems. Research in this area includes safety and security of trains, aircraft, ships and automobiles, creating secure cognitive radio networks that ensure mandated safety guarantees. He also collaborates on systems and communication security of power grids.
2) Electronic support for medical procedures. These include formulating, validating and verification of safety of medical workflows (now called Careflows), privacy and security medical data.
3) Digital forensics. Research in digital forensics include creating potential scenarios from evidence and creating frameworks for argumentations, error management of forensic data and add odds ratio between different scenarios that fit evidence.

Background: Prior to joining Mason as an assistant professor in 1999, Dr. Wijesekera was a senior systems engineer at Honeywell Space Systems in Clearwater, Florida. He has been a visiting post-doctoral fellow at the Army High Performance Research Center at the University of Minnesota.

Education: PhD, Mathematical Logic, Cornell University; PhD, Computer Science, University of Minnesota; and BSc in Mathematics, University of Colombo in Sri Lanka.

Dr. Angelos Stavrou

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Title: Founder and Director Emeritus, CARE

Phone: 703-993-3772

Groups: CARE Researchers

Office: 437 Research Hall

Web: cs.gmu.edu/~astavrou

Angelos Stavrou is a professor in the Computer Science Department and the founder of the Center for Assurance Research and Engineering (CARE) at George Mason University.

He is also the founder of Kryptowire, which provides provides mobile application software assurance tools, anti-piracy tools, marketplace security analytics, and mobile brand protection. Since its inception in 2011, Kryptowire has grown organically with a customer base ranging from major financial institutions to national telecommunications companies.

Research: Dr. Stavrou’s research interests include mobile device security, network security and intrusion detection, and his work is funded by several organizations including NSF, DARPA, ARO, DHS, AFOSR, IARPA and NIST. Dr. Stavrou received the Computer Science Department Young Faculty Research Award in 2010.

Publications: Dr. Stavrou has published over 40 papers on large systems security & survivability in major international journals and conferences.

Education: PhD (with distinction), Computer Science, Columbia University; MPhil, Computer Science, Columbia University; MSc, Electrical Engineering, Columbia University; MSc, theoretical Computer Science, University of Athens; and BS, Physics, University of Patras, Greece.

Dr. Jean-Pierre Auffret

Jean-Pierre Auffret, Executive Degree Programs Director for the GMU's School of Management

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Title: Director of CARE, co-director of CRC, and director of Research Partnerships, George Mason University

Phone: 703-993-5641

Groups: CARE Researchers, CARE STEP

J.P. Auffret is director, Center for Assurance Research and Engineering in the College of Engineering and Computing, co-director, Center of Excellence in Government Cybersecurity Risk Management and Resilience and director, Research Partnerships in the Costello School of Business at George Mason University, USA. Auffret is also co-founder and current president of the International Academy of CIO (IAC), an NGO headquartered in Tokyo.

Auffret’s work and research span a range of applied technology fields including CIO and ICT governance; cybersecurity; and innovation and application of emerging technologies and with APEC, U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of State, World Bank, ITU and IBM. His experience includes executive positions with MCI and its joint venture with British Telecom, Concert and academic positions with George Mason, Duke University’s Center for International Development, Georgetown University Biomedical Graduate Education, UNU-eGOV (United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance) and as physicist-in-residence at American University.  Auffret earned a B.S. from Duke University where he was an A.B. Duke Scholar, M.B.A. from the University of Virginia and Ph.D. in Physics from American University.