Cybersecurity Advisory Board
The Cybersecurity Advisory Board includes a diverse and experienced group of industry leaders and University of New 51 alumni working across multiple sectors of the cybersecurity and related industries. Their experience and input ensure that we preserve the University’s prestigious National Security Agency (NSA) Designation as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) and its reputation as a worldwide premier institution in cybersecurity education and research.
Chairman
Greg Sweeney
Senior Manager
RMS Cyber Innovations
Greg Sweeney is a Senior Manager, Cyber Innovations within the Lockheed Martin Rotary and Mission Systems (RMS) Business Area. Greg joined Lockheed as part of the Sikorsky acquisition in 2016. During his 18 years with Sikorsky & Lockheed he has held leadership positions in both Systems Engineering and Cybersecurity Engineering; where he led the development and integration of cybersecurity engineering principles and practices into the systems engineering process. In his current role, he is responsible for the integration and maturation of cyber resiliency systems engineering across all RMS DoD development programs. Mr. Sweeney earned his B.S. in Engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1985 and his M.S. in Management from Boston University in 2008.
Board Members
Aimee Barricelli
Senior Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer
Webster Bank
Aimee is the Senior Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer for Webster Bank, leading information security strategy and planning, security assessments, architecture, engineering and operations.
Aimee is a security executive, program designer, implementer and manager with extensive experience in financial services. She joined Webster in 2018 as V.P., Information Security Administration Manager and was a strategic and operational partner to the CISO. Aimee was primarily responsible for leading the execution of the company’s information security strategic plan and was instrumental in earning the CSO50 award for Webster for customer-focused security strategies.
Prior to joining Webster, Aimee spent 14 years in the financial services industry where she served as the Head of Insider Threat, prior to that she served as Senior Trade Auditor and Personal Financial Manager to the CEO. Aimee, who holds a bachelor of science degree in business administration with a concentration in accounting from The University of New Hampshire, launched her career as a corporate accountant in a variety of industries before making her way into the Security space. She currently serves on the Webster Women’s Initiative Leadership Board.
Nancy Brainerd
Deputy CISO
Medtronic
Nancy Brainerd joined Medtronic in 2000 and has held various technical roles in Medtronic’s Global IT organization. In 2006, she began working within the information security field, and currently holds the Deputy CISO role leading the Cyber Defense function within the Global Security Office at Medtronic. Nancy is active in the information security industry and participates in many coordinated activities, including the coordination of “TC3” (Twin Cities CISO Consortium - a group of connected security professionals within the Twin Cities) and coordinating sessions and panels for the bi-annual H-ISAC (Health Information Sharing and Analysis Center) summits. She is a frequent guest lecturer at the University of Minnesota for “Introduction to Information Technology in Business” undergraduate course on the topic of Cybersecurity. Nancy graduated from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
Jeff Brown
Chief Information Security Officer
The State of Connecticut
Jeff Brown is a recognized information security and IT risk expert with a strong track record of more than two decades implementing cost-effective controls for global Fortune 500 financial institutions including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, GE Capital, BNY Mellon and AIG. He currently serves as the first CISO for the State of Connecticut.
His latest publication, The Security Leader’s Communication Playbook, is scheduled to be published in the Fall, 2021 by CRC Press. He is the cochair of Evanta’s New York CISO Executive Summit events and works in an advisory capacity with the Cyber Investing Summit and HMG. He is currently a board advisor for iQ4 on their Virtual Cybersecurity Apprenticeship Challenge, which aims to prepare 10,000 students for the workforce and help address the security skills shortage.
Brandon Catalan ’07
Senior Director
Ankura
Brandon Catalan '07 (MS, National Security & Public Safety) is Senior Director of Cyber Investigations at Ankura, a management consulting firm. Mr. Catalan is a cyber threat intelligence and forensic expert having worked in the industry since 2007. Prior to his current position at Ankura, he was a Security Principal with Accenture iDefense where he was responsible for leading a global threat intelligence function providing focused support for Accenture Security’s cyber defense portfolio as well as delivering revenue generating threat intelligence propositions that align with the firm’s client base and the strategy of the overall business practice. Prior to Accenture, he was a Cyber Threat Principal at Raytheon where he acted as the primary subject matter expert for all incidents involving foreign state-sponsored cyber espionage and successfully integrated threat intelligence into incident response engagements by providing value-added services including digital forensic incident response, indicator enrichment, malware analysis, threat actor attribution and wider contextual intelligence. He has held a multitude of technical leadership roles where he provided counterintelligence support to focused cyber operations and research pertaining to adversarial tactics, techniques and procedures. His work has recently been published in the Wall Street Journal and various other media outlets, company blogs, and defense industry associations. Mr. Catalan has been credited for his work on intelligence community assessments related to cyber threats and has presented at a variety of Department of Defense and commercial conferences and symposiums.
Chris Cochran
Threat Intelligence and Operations Lead
Netflix
Chris Cochran is a Threat Intelligence and Operations Lead at Netflix, the world's leading streaming entertainment service. Mr. Cochran is former active duty US Marine Intelligence. He has dedicated his career to building advanced cybersecurity and intelligence capabilities for national-level governments and the private sector. Mr. Cochran has made it his personal mission to motivate and empower cybersecurity professionals and teams through coaching, his podcast Hacker Valley Studio, and speaking engagements. His concern for the ever-growing cyber skill gap serves as a motivator for his desire to inspire the next generation of cyber warriors to take the helm. Mr. Cochran holds an undergraduate degree in Humanities with a minor in Cybersecurity from The University of Maryland, and a graduate certificate in Penetration Testing and Ethical Hacking from the SANS Institute.
Rick Fontana ’99
Director of Emergency Management Operations
City of New 51
Richard ‘Rick’ Fontana, Jr. ‘98, '99, ‘06 (AS, Fire and Occupational Safety, BS, Fire Science Administration, MS National Security & Public Safety) is currently Director at the City of New 51, Office of Emergency Management & Homeland Security where he has been for the past 10 years. He retired from the West 51 Fire Department after spending over 30 years as a Paramedic and Career Firefighter with 2 departments including a Lead Firefighter & Shift Commander for the Sikorsky Aircraft Fire Department. His time now is spent preparing for, and responding to major emergency incidents in New 51, and also serves as an Operations Section Chief for the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management & Homeland Security Region 1, 2 & 5 Incident Management Team. Mr. Fontana earned his Fire Science Administration Degree from the University of New 51 and went on to earn a Masters Degree in National Security and Public Safety also from the University of New 51. Mr. Fontana is appointed to serve on the FEMA Region 1 Regional Advisory Committee with the states of CT, MA, RI, ME, NH, and VT. Mr. Fontana currently serves as the ESF-5 Chair of the Region 2 Steering Committee under the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management & Homeland Security Agency. He further serves as the Region 2 ESF -20 Port Security Chair. Additionally, Mr. Fontana is a Governor appointed Fire Commissioner for the CT Commission on Fire Prevention and Control. Mr. Fontana was nominated and selected in 2013 to represent the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and is serving his second 3-year term.
Charlie Grabenstein ’87
Chief Operating Officer
ORBIS Inc.
Charlie Grabenstein '87 (BS, Electrical Engineering) is the Chief Operating Officer (COO) for ORBIS Inc., an Engineering Solutions Company. ORBIS Inc. is a Veteran-Owned Small Business that provides Cybersecurity support to the US Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) under two major contracts. After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of New 51 in 1987, Mr. Grabenstein joined Tracor Inc. in Groton, CT supporting US Navy Submarine programs. Over the course of 10 years, he advanced from an Engineer to Program Manager. As Program Manager, Mr. Grabenstein supported Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC) and Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) providing state of the art Systems Engineering support on US Navy Submarine, Cruiser and Destroyer platforms. In 1997, Mr. Grabenstein relocated to Washington, DC with BAE (formerly Tracor) as the Technical Advisor to the NAVSEA Undersea Warfare Surface Ship Sonar Installation Program Manager. In this position, he provided the technical leadership for engineering and problem resolution of prototype and production systems.
From 1999 to 2010 Mr. Grabenstein worked as a Vice President for Alion Science and Technology Corporation (formerly Anteon Corporation). Mr. Grabenstein managed a $40M operation supporting NAVSEA PEO Submarines, PEO Aircraft Carriers, and PEO Littoral Mine Warfare. During his time with Alion, Mr. Grabenstein strategically positioned the company to become one of the leading professional support contractors in PEO Submarines headquarters.
From 2010 to 2012, Mr. Grabenstein was the COO at SUBSYSTEM Technologies, Inc. where he was accountable for all client relationships, subcontractors and support contracts for the US Army, US Navy, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Pamela Gupta
President
OutSecure Inc.
Pamela Gupta is President of OutSecure Inc., a cybersecurity strategy creation and implementation company headquartered in Shelton, Connecticut, with offices in Europe and India. Drawing upon a unique combination of more than 20 years of technical, process, policy, and business experience in leading Fortune 500 companies, Ms. Gupta provides consulting to public and private sector clients in the areas of privacy, security, cybercrime, breach management, and cyber strategy. Her services include assistance to boards and senior management, security risk assessments, global compliance reviews, and defining mature security programs and strategy. She actively speaks at security forums and is one of the original governing body members of CISO Executive Network in New York. Ms. Gupta earned her M.S. in Artificial Intelligence at the University of Bridgeport in 1997.
Cory Hall
Principal Cybersecurity Engineer
MITRE Corporation
Cory Hall is a Principal Cybersecurity Engineer at the MITRE Corporation where he leads research teams in the areas of cybercrime analysis, applied machine learning, systems engineering and acquisition, creating custom data acquisition methods, and the development of the Cyber-investigation Analysis Standard Expression (CASE). He serves as the Executive Secretary of the CASE Open Source Community (2019-present) – caseontology.org. He serves on the Board of Project VIC International – projectvic.org – a non-profit enabling law enforcement with the latest tools to investigative, identify, and rescue child victims of sexual assault. Additionally, he is also a member of the Tagliatella School of Engineering’s Industry Steering Board and a board member of the Bergami Cybersecurity School, both at the University of New 51. He received a BS in Information Technology, MS in Cybersecurity, and holds the CISSP certification. He is active in the Digital Forensic Research Workshop, American Academy of Forensic Science, and several INTERPOL-led digital investigation communities and he often serves as a contributor and peer reviewer for those community's publications. Prior to MITRE, Cory served as a Cyber Intelligence Analyst Sr Manager at Lockheed Martin where he led teams working in defense of the nation in cyberspace. Prior to that, Cory got his start in digital forensics incident response, and system engineering working for Smartronix and ITAC. Cory is a veteran of the United States Army where he served for eight years.
Anthony Johnson
Managing Partner
Delve Risk
Anthony Johnson is a Managing Partner at Delve Risk, where he leads a practice focused on driving technology and risk management transformation on behalf of their clients. He brings extensive technical and executive leadership experience to the practice while also serving as a technology advisor to a number of software solution providers. Anthony is a graduate of Indiana University, where he received a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) and of Regis University where he received a BS in Computer Information Systems. Throughout his career, Anthony has led some of the largest Cybersecurity programs in the world as the Chief Information Security Officer; dealing with highly complex multi-national regulatory requirements and ever evolving sophisticated threats. He has driven dramatic program transformations across hundreds of people, with budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars; emphasizing the expansion of analytics, secure from the start architecture, incident response and cloud first security approaches to shatter expectations of what is possible with “classic corporate teams”. He leads with a people first mentality and is a coach to existing CISO’s around the world, helping to translate complicated technology issues into actionable strategic plans that align with the corporate and Board objectives.
Anthony is a global speaker on the topic of cyber security and enterprise risk, an active technology evangelist/advisor to emerging and startup companies and has multiple patents in progress related to both risk management and blockchain.
Prior to joining Delve Risk he served as the Global CISO and Managing Director for multiple Fortune 100 companies, including Fannie Mae ($120bn) and the Corporate & Investment Bank (CIB) at J.P. Morgan Chase & Company ($35bn). His other passions include advancing the discussion on diversity and inclusion in the workforce, and creating channels for disadvantaged youth to enter the technology field. He lives in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area with his wife and daughter.
Karl Kispert
President and Chief Executive Officer
Infoaxis, Inc.
Karl is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Infoaxis, Inc. As the leader of Infoaxis, he has the pleasure of working with a passionate and very experienced team of professionals that provides business enablement along with managing IT risk. His team members are leaders in Intelligent Process Automation, Managed and Cloud Services along with Cybersecurity.
Karl has 32 years of experience in the cybersecurity and business risk space. Karl has worked within the US government and private sector, serving domestic and international agencies and clients. Earlier in his career, as a federal agent, Karl was involved at the highest and most secure level with many of our nation’s most critical physical, technological, and information security programs and decision makers. After leaving federal service, Karl supported the Intelligence Community for nearly 10 years as a Chief Information Security Officer for National Lab.
While Karl's university studies were at the University of Scranton majoring in Pre Law and Criminal Justice, he also received form training from the National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Department of Defense.
Mark Loepker
Senior Advisor and Academic Lead
National Cryptologic Museum Foundation
Mark S. Loepker is a master practitioner in Information Assurance (IA) and International Partnerships with over 39 years of government experience. He excels at orchestrating dissimilar groups aimed at fostering consensus to solve the toughest cybersecurity challenges. Mr. Loepker held many Executive level leadership positions throughout his career.
Mr. Loepker currently serves as the Education Program Director to the National Cryptologic Museum Foundation, focused on developing educational programs to be delivered from the new Cyber Center for Education & Innovation (CCEI). In this role, he focuses on ensuring that K-12/STEM initiatives are tightly aligned with national cyber curriculum standards, and that the CCEI becomes a national resource addressing workforce development and operational training requirements targeting 13-20 grade curriculum.
During his National Security Agency career, he worked closely with Congressional Members and Staff on emerging cybersecurity issues and legislation. He was the Director, National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) established between the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and NSA to evaluate Information Technology (IT) product conformance to international standards. He was the Department of Defense Chief Information Officer (DoD/CIO), Defense-wide Information Assurance Program (DIAP) Director. He ensured the DoD's vital IT resources were secured and protected by unifying and integrating cybersecurity activities to achieve secure Net-Centric Global Information Grid operations. He served as the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS), Secretariat Manager and was responsible for setting National Security Systems (NSS) national-level Information Assurance policies, directives, and instructions and providing a forum for the discussion of policy issues amongst U.S. Government departments and agencies. He served as the Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA) Executive Subcommittee Chairman leading 27 Nations in product assurance, evaluation, supply chain risk management and managing the CCRA. He served for six years as the NATO Information Security Subcommittee National Co-Chairman and three years as the CNSS Subcommittee Chairman.
Mr. Loepker’s educational degrees include a Master in Business Administration – Quantitative Analysis, University of Missouri; Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering Technology, Purdue University; Associate in Aviation Electronic Technology, Purdue University and numerous NSA technical, executive and legislative development programs.
Allen Love '88, '90 MPA
Executive Vice President, Head of Corporate Security
TD Bank
Allen Love has been a member of the University of New 51's Board of Governors since 2012, and earned both a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Public Administration degree from the University of New 51. Mr. Love has been involved with the money laundering and financial crime prevention field for more than 19 years. His career began as a special agent for the Internal Revenue Service's Criminal Investigation Unit, where he was responsible for conducting and supervising complex money laundering investigations. He has served as vice president and co-treasurer for the Depository Trust Clearing Corporation and vice president of the AML unit at Citigroup Domestic Private Banking. Mr. Love also has served as the AML/bank secrecy act officer for PayPal and as the global AML officer for GE Commercial Finance. He was a member of the original El Dorado Task Force that battled the money laundering aspect of narcotics trafficking at the Mexican border in the early 1990s. As a consultant, Mr. Love has assisted numerous financial services institutions in developing and implementing AML programs. He is a member of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists.
George Mathanool
Managing Partner
COVE LLC
George Mathanool is the Managing Partner of Connecticut Overseas Ventures & Enterprises (COVE) LLC, and a board member of Connecticut's state investment boards and commissions. His interests and activities span international ventures and fostering innovation and development of digital security, online payments, fintech and trusted transaction technologies within Asia and Europe.
As a seasoned banker and tech evangelist in AsiaPac, Mr. Mathanool promoted e-banking startups and the nascent concept of digital trust and privacy to break ground for electronic transactions, cybersecurity, online risk management and international e-payments. He initiated several stages of highly complex programs to deliver global standards and policy frameworks for non-repudiation in e-commerce, e-banking and e-government, and wider utilization of smartcards across Asia-Pacific and Europe. He collaborated with multi-regional and local banks, their vendors and partners, including IBM, PWC, Ernst & Young, Entrust, Deloitte, Gemplus, SWIFT, PayPal, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Verisign, Norton, RSA, and Intel.
Mr. Mathanool was in the past an elected International Vice President and a member of the International Board of Directors of the Information Systems and Security Association (ISSA). The ISSA had chapters in 32 countries, with over 15,000 professional info-security members. Within ISSA his many oversights included; global alliances, governmental relations, Co-Chair-ISSA / ISO 27000 WGs, Liaison-Liberty Alliance Project, Chair-Chapter Mentorship Program, Advisor-ISSA Singapore and Regional Director for South America and Asia, and to raise awareness for info-security training and their certifications.
Sali Osman
Full Hunt
Executive Vice President, Director Cybersecurity & Risk
Sali Osman, NACD Governance Fellow, CISSP, CISM, CRISC, earned her PhD in Biodefense (ABD), and her M.S in Information Security Management, B.Eng. Electronics & Communications. She is a globally recognized C-level Information Security Executive (currently Principal Advisor) who delivers value by leveraging technology, risk and security strategies and measures to protect corporate assets and reputation for major global companies. He has earned success within senior leadership roles with GE, and sought-after Subject Matter Expert for $100 billion Saudi Aramco, and key departments of the U.S. Government. Ms. Osman provides expert counsel with Fortune 20 Boards, Private Equity and Banks. Success demonstrated in a wide range of sectors ranging from Industrial, Oil & Gas, Finance, Consumer Goods, Hospitality, Higher Education, and Not-For-Profits.
With a career start in law enforcement, Sali has more than 22 years of experience in risk and security in the following competencies. Sali has extensive Board Experience, including sitting on the Advisory Boards for CyberLympics, EC-Council Foundation, International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals, Cybersecurity for Broadcasters, and as Chairperson of the Mentor-Protégé Committee.
Sali led community development efforts in the US and Africa and was formerly a Trainer at the U.S. Cyber Challenge Program (USCC) under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) & mentor in the CyberLympics. She is founder of the Cyber Ninjettes, teaching middle and high school girls coding and Cyber hacking techniques. Sali developed the award winning Alsudaneya Mentoring Program (ASM). Founder of the Nubian Village for economic empowerment of disadvantaged Nubians in villages and diaspora. Sali is fluent in English, Arabic and French, loves sailing, and the mother of two grown children.
Kavya Pearlman
Founder & CEO
XR Safety Initiative (XRSI)
Kavya Pearlman is CEO & Founder of the non-profit, XR Safety Initiative (XRSI). XRSI is the very first global effort that promotes privacy, security, ethics and develops standards and guidelines for Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality (VR/AR/MR) collectively known as XR. Well-known as the “Cyber Guardian”, Ms. Pearlman is an Award-winning cybersecurity professional with a deep interest in immersive and emerging technologies.
Ms. Pearlman has advised Facebook on third party security risks during the 2016 US presidential elections. She currently advises Wallarm, a global security company that protects hundreds of customers across e-commerce, fintech, health-tech, and SaaS for their AI-powered application security platform as a Global Cybersecurity Strategist. She is one of the Top 50 speakers in the cybersecurity industry and constantly shares knowledge via webinars, conference talks and blog posts around Application Security, Cloud-native technologies, Machine Learning and immersive technologies such as XR.
Ms. Pearlman holds a master’s degree in network security from DePaul University, Chicago and holds many prestigious Information Security certifications, including CISM (Certified Information Security Manager) from ISACA, and PCIP for Payment Card Industry Security Standard Council. Ms. Pearlman is truly passionate about her work and inspires many around the world, including women and underrepresented communities in security and emerging technologies. She is a board member of the non-profit Minorities in Cybersecurity and an advisory board member of CISO Council North America.
Larry “Chris” Pugh
Office Chief of Cyber
Warrant Officer Force Integration
U.S. Army Retired Captain Larry Christopher Pugh, began his career in the Armed Services, culminating in a nearly 25 year career. During that time Chris served for nearly 17 years as an enlisted Soldier, in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. He is a veteran of Operations Desert Fox and Desert Thunder, and Operation Iraqi Freedom, proudly serving during Surge Operations, and finally departing Iraq with Operation New Dawn. During his time as an Officer he worked extensively as an Information Technology Subject Matter Expert, IT and Network Management Officer, Senior Network Management Officer, and assisting with Operations to restore communications to over 250,000 Military Personnel.
Upon his retirement Mr. Pugh still saw the need to support the Army's next evolution into the Information Technology gap, immediately joining the U.S. Army Cyber School, in support of Army Cyber Command. In this capacity, Mr. Pugh created such programs as Sister Services Recruiting, supporting highly qualified Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps Cyber Operators who wish transition to the Army and continue their service within Army Cyber, and a Cyber Direct Commissioning Pilot Program. Mr. Pugh has also served as the Cyber Recruiting Officer, conducting educational engagements with over 45 Universities, and nearly 100 High Schools reaching out to hundreds of students on an annual basis. It is his continued passion that drives him to assist in creating the next evolution of Cyber Academia, and Cyber Professionals.
Rowena Track ‘87
CEO
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Rowena Track has more 30 years of domestic and international experience. In 2018, she founded վٲé, a strategy and services advisory firm for Boards, CEOs and C-Suite executives, focusing on innovation, transformation and digitization.
Prior to that, she was vice president of digital marketing at Cigna Corporation, a Fortune 100 global health services organization with a market cap or more than $50 billion. Prior to Cigna, she was vice president of marketing and digital strategy & solutions at TE Connectivity, a more than $30 billion global technology leader.
She is known to be a key influencer of her company’s Boards and had been successful in gaining buy-in and approval of large-scale global innovation and transformation initiatives. Her career has been at the intersection of corporate strategy, modern marketing and sales, digital transformation, and technology innovation. Her accountabilities include full P&L management, strategic marketing and sales, global digital transformation, analytically driven customer experience, and technology innovation.
Her career spans multiple industries and also includes positions at CitiBank, TIAA-CREF Financial Services, Bayer Healthcare, Service Master, Yale University, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
A "digital native," Ms. Track has been a pioneer in leveraging innovation and digital solutions to transform and enable growth and customer centricity for her employers in the new global digital economy.
She is known as a transformational leader and has led client-and customer-centric global, enterprise-wide initiatives that have resulted in revenue growth, increased brand equity, net new customer acquisition, retention of existing customers, and double digit net promoter score increases. Ms. Track has an entrepreneurial aptitude and led an "experimental" digital business concept at an international bank and, within two years brought asset inflows upward of $8 billion. She is known for building, leading and implementing aggressive growth strategies in a competitive global economy.