StartingBlock: Cybersecurity in the Digital Age

StartingBlock presents the latest installment in our Innovate Tech Series: Cybersecurity in the Digital Age.

Our increasingly interconnected world presents new digital vulnerabilities. Join us to hear from distinguished local experts in the field of cybersecurity to learn what's keeping them up at night, and what opportunities they see for the future of small business in cybersecurity.

Panelists:

Nicho Peterson is the cofounder and Chief Operator of Castle One, protecting startups with an all-in-one cybersecurity solution. Formerly a cybersecurity researcher at the CIA, Nicho comes to the private sector with Top Secret clearance and deep expertise in modern cyberattacks. He is a full stack developer, and an experienced manager, operator, and entrepreneur.

Rahul Chaatterjee is an Assistant Professor at UW-Madison. Rahul's research focuses on user authentication, digital safety and privacy, and security of emerging technologies. He is working devising new ways to allow users to authenticate more easily, such as allowing users to log in with small typographical mistakes in their password. He was instrumental in creating a tech-clinic to help survivors of intimate partner violence in New York City, and is working with DAIS to build one here in Madison. Prior to joining UW-Madison, he received his PhD from Cornell University in 2019, and a Masters from UW-Madison in 2015.

Earlence Fernandes is an Assistant Professor at UW-Madison, in the Department of Computer Sciences . Prior to coming to the UW, Earlance was a Research Associate at the University of Washington. Fernandes works on computer security for emerging technologies such as smartphones, smart homes, and cyber-physical systems. He strives to address security issues before systems are “designed and deployed widely.” According to Fernandes, “Everyone deserves to be secure when interacting with an increasingly computerized world.”

Somesh Jha received his B.Tech from Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi in Electrical Engineering. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University under the supervision of Prof. Edmund Clarke (a Turing award winner). Currently, Somesh Jha is the Lubar Professor in the Computer Sciences Department at the University of Wisconsin (Madison). His work focuses on analysis of security protocols, survivability analysis, intrusion detection, formal methods for security, and analyzing malicious code. Recently, he has focussed his interested on privacy and adversarial ML (AML). Somesh Jha has published several articles in highly-refereed conferences and prominent journals. He has won numerous best-paper and distinguished-paper awards. Prof Jha also received the NSF career award.