Breakout Sessions

Streamlining Compliance and Reproducibility

Session Chair: Jelena Mirkovic
Co-Chair: Joseph A. Konstan

Location: Synergy A
Time: Day 1 Monday, 3:30 – 5:00 PM

Jelena Mirkovic is a Principal Scientist at USC/ISI and research associate professor at USC. She received her MS and PhD from UCLA. Jelena’s research interests span networking and security fields. Her current research is focused on denial-of-service attacks, measurement of vulnerability scanning, user-centric security, and privacy. Additionally, she is interested in methodologies for conducting security experiments and leads a large project called SPHERE to build research infrastructure for cybersecurity experimentation.

Joseph A. Konstan is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Distinguished University Teaching Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, where he also serves as an Associate Dean for Research in the College of Science of Engineering.  His research develops and experiments with human-centered artificial intelligence systems, specifically in the context of online recommender and social computing systems.  He is best known for the GroupLens project (which won the ACM Software Systems Award).  Dr. Konstan received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1993.  He is a Fellow of the ACM, IEEE, and AAAS; and a member of the CHI Academy.

AI and Cyber Infrastructure

Session Chair: Vandana Janeja
Co-Chair: Avik Mahata

Location: Synergy B
Time: Day 1 Monday, 3:30 – 5:00 PM

Vandana Janeja is Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development in the College of Engineering and Information Technology, Professor of Information Systems department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC). She served as chair of the Information Systems department at UMBC (2019-2023). She is the author of the book “Data Analytics for Cybersecurity” published by Cambridge press. She heads the Multi Data lab at UMBC, which brings together projects addressing important societal aspects such as climate change, ethics in data science, misinformation detection, developing research ecosystems, and advancing data science pedagogy through the lens of her research in data science. She is the recipient of the 2024 University System of Maryland Board of Regents Faculty Award for excellence in scholarship or research. She is a member of the UMBC ADVANCE Executive committee focusing on diversity in STEM and is a member of the ADVANCE leadership cohort (2022-2024) and an ELATES at Drexel leadership fellow (2021-2022). She is a UMBC innovation fellow (2020-2022) advancing the ideas of including ethics in data science. She served as an expert at NSF, supporting data science activities in the CISE directorate (CNS: 2018-2021) and as AAAS S&TP fellow in the Office of the Assistant Director in the CISE directorate (2017-2018). During the fellowship, she helped with the visioning and coordination of cross directorate activities for Harnessing the Data Revolution Big Idea at NSF, Data Science Corps, Open Knowledge Network, and Cloud Access.

Avik Mahata is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the School of Engineering and Computational Sciences at Merrimack College, North Andover, MA. He specializes in multiscale materials modeling, machine learning applications in materials science, and the design of advanced materials. His research integrates theoretical modeling, simulations, and data-driven approaches to explore the solidification processes of metals and alloys, the mechanical properties of 2D materials and van der Waals heterostructures, and the phase stability of high-entropy alloys. He earned his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Missouri S&T, Rolla, MO (2016), a Master of Technology from the National Institute of Technology, Trichy, India, and a Bachelor of Engineering from the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur, India. His expertise spans solidification theory, computational thermodynamics, and the intersection of machine learning with materials discovery. His research has been supported by national funding agencies and industry collaborations, driving innovations in data-driven materials design and advanced manufacturing.

Infrastructure Support and Applications for Cyber Infrastructure

Session Chair: David Balenson
Co-Chair: Nik Sultana

Location: Viewpoint
Time: Day 1 Monday, 3:30 – 5:00 PM

David Balenson is the Interim Director of the Networking and Cybersecurity Division at USC Information Sciences Institute. He also serves as the Community Outreach Director for the NSF-funded SPHERE (Security and Privacy Heterogeneous Environment for Reproducible Experimentation) and PIVOT (Platform for Innovative Vehicle Open Telematics) projects. His research focuses on cybersecurity and privacy for critical infrastructure and cyber-physical systems—particularly in automotive and autonomous vehicles—along with experimentation and testing, technology transition, and multidisciplinary research.

Nik Sultana is an assistant professor of Computer Science at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He develops networking techniques to improve cybersecurity and research infrastructure. Before joining Illinois Tech, he was a post-doc at UPenn after completing his PhD at Cambridge University. In 2024 and 2023, he received VSP awards from the Universities Research Association, and in 2022, he received a Google Research Award.