Exciting Career Opportunities in Cybersecurity: Listen, Interact, and Learn

October is Cybersecurity Awareness month! Join cybersecurity experts alongside Northeastern University’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences to celebrate national cybersecurity career week in conjunction with the call to action from NIST.

Agenda

• 4:30pm – 5:00pm: Mix and mingle with cybersecurity experts in the metro DC area
• 5:00pm – 6:00pm: Panel discussion
• 6:00pm – 7:00pm: Networking and refreshments

Register today and join us for refreshments, networking with cybersecurity professionals and educators, and the opportunity to listen to, interact with, and learn from distinguished panelists.

This free talk will be held at the Northeastern University campus in Arlington, Virginia.

Questions? Please email c.smith@northeastern.edu.

About the panelists

Dr. Ambareen Siraj
Program Director, National Science Foundation

Ambareen Siraj is currently serving as a program director at the National Science Foundation as a member of a team overseeing Cybersecurity Education and Workforce Development initiatives of NSF nationwide. She is the founder of the Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) non-profit organization. As a professor of computer science, she served as the founding director of the Cybersecurity Education, Research, and Outreach Center at Tennessee Tech until June 3, 2022. Siraj’s research areas of interest include smart grid security, sensor alert fusion with alert correlation and alert clustering, security metrics, security education and workforce development. She has authored/co- authored more than fifty journal and conference articles in these areas. She has led National Science Foundation projects including: “Tennessee Cybercorps: A Hybrid Program in Cybersecurity”, “Tennessee Tech Gen-Cyber Camps”, “Capacity Building in Cybersecurity: Broadening Participation of Women in Cybersecurity through Women in Cybersecurity Conference & Professional Development”, “CyberWorkshops: Resources and Strategies for Teaching Cybersecurity in Computer Science”, and “Security Knitting Kit: Integrating Security into Traditional CS Courses”.

Dr. Davina Pruitt-Mentle
Lead for Academic Engagement, NICE

Davina Pruitt-Mentle serves as Lead for Academic Engagement of NICE at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Prior to joining NICE, she was a senior researcher and policy analyst for Educational Technology Policy, Research and Outreach (ETPRO) and served as the Co-PI for the National Science Foundation (NSF) supported National Cyberwatch Center (NCC). Previous to NCC leadership, she served as faculty within the College of Education at the University of Maryland, College Park, and served as Director of Educational Technology Outreach within the College of Education at UMCP from 2001-2008. She has spent over 20 years conducting research on student and educator cyberawareness, and developing programs to help increase the STEM and cybersecurity workforce pipeline. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Technology Policy from the University of Maryland, her M.Ed from Lynchburg College, and her B.S. from Virginia Tech.

Daniel VanBelleghem Jr.
Sr. Director Cybersecurity Architect, General Dynamics IT

Daniel J. VanBelleghem Jr. is a Northeastern University – Boston alumnus, earning M.A. and B.S. degrees In electrical engineering. VanBelleghem Jr. also earned an M.S. In systems engineering from Virginia Polytechnic and State University. He also holds the gold standard CISSP industry certification in cybersecurity. He is currently the Sr. Director Cybersecurity Architect with General Dynamics IT in Fairfax, VA. In this role, VanBelleghem Jr. serves as the Chief Security Architect for a federal government customer. He leads the development of cybersecurity strategies, technical roadmaps, and future technology adoption planning. He also facilitates vendor engagement for cybersecurity product evaluations, demonstrations, and procurement support. He is an adjunct faculty member at the George Mason University teaching courses within their NSA recognized National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Research. He has been a featured speaker at numerous conferences, meetings, and media events, including the Computer Security Institute’s Annual Security Conference, DoD Cyber Crime Conference, RSA Security Conference, SANS Institute Conference, and the Black Hat Briefings.

Huihui Wang
Teaching Professor, Director of Computing Programs – Northeastern University Arlington

Huihui Wang is a teaching professor and director of computing programs in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, based in Arlington.

In her teaching, Wang teaches computing foundations courses and enjoys helping students without undergraduate CS degrees thrive at the graduate level. As an administrator, she recruits and supervises faculty for master’s programs in Arlington. In her research, she examines challenges and opportunities for computing education in the third wave of artificial intelligence, as well as how to build and strengthen pathways into computing fields.

Prior to joining Khoury College in 2024, Wang was a program director within the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for STEM Education and Directorate for Technology Innovation and Partnerships. She was also an associate professor of cybersecurity at St. Bonaventure University and the founding chair of the Department of Engineering at Jacksonville University.

Outside of academia, she enjoys dance and tennis.

Elizabeth Hawthorne
Director of Cybersecurity – Arlington, Professor of the Practice – Northeastern University Arlington

Elizabeth “Beth” Hawthorne is a professor and a cybersecurity graduate program director in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, based in Arlington.

Hawthorne joined Khoury College in 2024 to collaborate with top-notch computer science and cybersecurity colleagues in the Align network and to impact the career trajectories of students. She teaches graduate courses in cybersecurity and digital forensics, and is particularly passionate about the exciting, dynamic field of cybersecurity education.

Previously, Hawthorne was an online lecturer at Rider University, and the founding director and curriculum developer for the university’s cybersecurity graduate program. As director, she taught online cybersecurity courses, advised students, supervised graduate assistants, and hired faculty. Hawthorne strives to broaden participation in computing and is a former chair of the ACM Education Board, which promotes computing education at all collegiate levels.

For more information about Hawthorne, check out her People of ACM profile.

Agnes H. Chan
Professor Emeritus – Northeastern University

Agnes Chan is a professor emeritus at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on cryptography and communication security. In the past, she has worked on designing efficient implementations on divisible electronic cash and efficient mutual authentication algorithms for small mobile devices. Chan currently works on protocols, key management schemes, and anti-jamming algorithms for securing communications among devices in a hostile, resource-constrained environment. Her recent research focuses on examining practical algorithms to ensure privacy and security on open clouds.

Chan received her doctorate in mathematics and joined Northeastern’s faculty in 1977. In 2005, Chan led the effort in establishing the interdisciplinary Institute of Information Assurance with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Northeastern. She was also instrumental in Northeastern’s designation by the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security as a Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education, Research, and Cyber Operations.

Chan holds two patents, one on ultrafast pseudorandom sequence generators and another on software-based stream ciphers. She has also been widely published in IEEE conferences and journals, and in Crypto and Eurocrypt. Her research has been funded by NSA, NSF, DARPA, and telecommunication industries. She has served on the IEE Information Theory Society’s board of directors and is currently on the editorial board of the International Journal on Cryptography and Communication.

Chan has been active in promoting women in sciences, in particular. She was an invited speaker at NSA’s “Women in Mathematics” and “Alumni Mathematicians” at Smith College.