Terry Benzel and Goran Scuric  – DETER PI and DETER Partner Manager –  traveled to Singapore in early November to work with International DETER Partners at the Singapore National Cyber Lab (NCL) being developed by the National University of Singapore (NUS), under sponsorship of the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF). The NCL is based on the DETERLab cyber security testbed.

National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security organized a series of joint workshops on Cybersecurity and Privacy with the Brazilian Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology. The first workshop was held December 3rd thru 4th in Brasilia, Brazil. There were approximately twenty US researchers, primarily from academia, and an equal number of Brazilian researchers from a variety of Brazilian universities and industry.

I participated in the National Cyber Security Research Agenda (NCSRA) Symposium at The Hague, Netherlands on November 2, 2015. The symposium was for those interested or involved in cybersecurity research, development, innovation, and education. It offered a podium for concrete projects, either recently completed or in progress, for which two subsequent editions of the NCSRA acted as the framework.

I will be attending the upcoming IEEE Women in Engineering International Leadership Conference (WIE-ILC), to be held April 23-25, in San Jose, California. There are two events in conjunction with the WIE-ILC specific to Cybersecurity. The first is an “Innovations in Cybersecurity” panel. I am one of three women leaders participating in the panel that will provide expertise, perspective, and discussion on current cybersecurity strategies.

I had the opportunity to participate in the Wall Street Journal CIO Network Conference. Leading technology and information executives convened for this third annual meeting in San Diego, California on February 2-3, 2015. These leading CIOs and CTOs came together to discuss and debate key action items to spur better decision-making, greater technology, and innovation in corporations. I was invited to participate as a subject matter expert in the area of cybersecurity and was assigned to the breakout session on "The National Agenda". 

I find that working with CIOs and industry leaders provides a valuable perspective on hard problems and helps ground our research. I had some very interesting and informative discussions with CIOs from organizations ranging from a global consulting company to technologists from cybersecurity start-up companies.

Keynote speakers included:

• J. Craig Venter, Ph.D.
  Co-founder, Executive Chairman and CEO
  Human Longevity, Inc.

• John T. Chambers
  Chairman and CEO
  Cisco

• Maarten Sierhuis, Ph.D.
  Director, Nissan Research Center Silicon Valley
  Nissan North America

• Howard A. Schmidt, Ph.D.
  Co-Founder, Ridge-Schmidt Cyber, LLC
  Cybersecurity Coordinator and Special Assistant to President Obama (2009-2012)
  Cybersecurity Advisor to President Bush (2001-2003)

Several key members of the DETER Project team – myself (Terry Benzel), Steve Schwab, and Ted Faber – traveled to Israel to work with the Israeli National Cyber Bureau (INCB) under a bi-lateral agreement between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the INCB. Additionally, we took with us two DeterLab 'power users' from our DETER community – Sandy Clark, University of Pennsylvania and Ryan Goodfellow, Washington State University – to be a part of this exciting opportunity. DHS was represented by Dr.

PBS NOVA host David Pogue and a film crew visited USC ISI to learn more about cyber security and the DETER Project. As a result of this visit, PBS NOVA is now hosting a featurette about the DETER Project on their web site as part of their ongoing web presence, complimenting their television series Making Stuff Safer.

I had the opportunity to discuss with David the current threat environment and how DeterLab contributes to improving Cyber Security through experimental science of cyber security.

I had the opportunity to participate in the DHS S&T Cyber Security Division Principal Investigators' Meeting in Washington D.C., September 16th thru 18th. The meeting had over 200 attendees, including researchers working in a wide range of research topics: Digital Provenance, Software Assurance, Security Metrics, Identity Management, Insider Threat, Cyber Forensics, Usable Security, and Network Mapping & Measurement.