2019 Speakers
Prof. Ali Babar
University of Adelaide
Ali Babar is a Professor in the School of Computer Science, University of Adelaide. Professor Babar leads the University of Adelaide’s participation in the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre (CSCRC), one of the largest Cyber Security initiative the Australasian region. Within the CSCRC, he leads the theme on Platforms and Architectures for Cyber Security solutions as service. At the University of Adelaide, Professor Babar has established an interdisciplinary research centre, CREST – Centre for Research on Engineering Software Technologies, where he leads a research and development team of more than 15members. He has been involved in attracting several millions of dollar worth of research resources over the last ten years. Professor Babar has authored/co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed articles in the premier Software Technology journals and conferences. With an H-Index 45,the level of citations to his publications is among the leading Software Engineering researchers in Aus/NZ. Further details can be found on: http://malibabar.wordpress.com
Dr Jackie Craig
Independent Consultant
Jackie Craig graduated with a PhD in physics from St. Andrews University in 1981 and was employed by the UK Ministry of Defence for nine years. In 1990 she emigrated to Australia and began her 26 year science career with the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group, rising to become Chief of Cyber and Electronic Warfare Division where she led a team of 350 scientists, engineers and technical specialists. Jackie has held several executive leadership positions within Defence and the five-eyes Defence and Intelligence S&T forums, spanning the areas of space, digital systems, autonomous systems, big data, cyber and ISREW. Jackie has 57 publications in the open literature, 27 classified publications, numerous conference presentations and keynote addresses, and is the lead author on four strategic S&T plans. She was awarded the 2001 Ministers Award in Defence Science for her substantial contribution and influence on imagery ISR systems, and has received several awards for scientific leadership from the five-eyes community in the areas of ISR, space, EW and cyber. She was elected as an ATSE Fellow in 2016. With time running out and so many Alpine mountains and rock walls to climb, Jackie retired in 2016. In between climbing, she is very active in the ATSE Digital Futures Forum, and whilst an Honorary Fellow of DST Group she contributed to the development of Australian Defence Space S&T Strategy.
Mohan Koo
Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer
With more than 20 years of experience in the cyber security industry, Mohan implemented ‘Privacy by Design’, giving the end user control of their data.
Prof. Robert Deng
Singapore Management University
Prof. Robert Deng is AXA Chair Professor of Cybersecurity, DirectorM of the Secure Mobile Centre, and Deputy Dean for Faculty & Research, School of Information Systems, Singapore Management University (SMU). His research interests are in the areas of data security and privacy, cloud security and Internet of Things security. He received the Outstanding University Researcher Award from National University of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew Fellowship for Research Excellence from SMU, and Asia-Pacific Information Security Leadership Achievements Community Service Star from International Information Systems Security Certification Consortium. He has served in many editorial boards and conference committees, including the editorial boards of IEEE Security & Privacy Magazine, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, International Journal of Information Security, Journal of Computer Science and Technology, and Steering Committee Chair of the ACM Asia Conference on Computer and Communications Security. He is an IEEE Fellow.
Dr. Olivier de Vel
Defence Science & Technology Group
Dr. Olivier de Vel obtained MSc(I Hons) from Waikato University (New Zealand) and a PhD in Electronic Engineering from the Institut National Polytechnique of Grenoble (INPG, France). He is currently Principal Scientist (Cyber) in the Cyber and Electronic Warfare Division, Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group, Department of Defence, Australia. Dr de Vel has worked at several national and international universities, in government research agencies (e.g., CNRS, ORSTOM, DSIR), and in industry R&D laboratories (BHP Billiton mining, GECO oil & gas industry). Dr de Vel joined DST Group in 1999 to set up and provide the scientific R&D leadership in cyber forensics. In 2005, he was appointed Research Leader in Cyber Assurance and Operations to lead the DST Group broad spectrum cyber-security program in the C3I Division. He was appointed Principal Scientist (Cyber) in 2015. Dr de Vel has developed collaborative research programs with government research entities as well as universities. His expertise is in the area of artificial intelligence and machine learning for cyber-security and he has published over 100 papers in computer science, digital forensics and machine learning.
Prof. Jin-Song Dong
Griffith University
Jin-Song Dong completed his PhD degree in Computing from University of Queensland in 1995. From 1995 to 1998, he was research scientist at CSIRO in Australia. Since 1998 he has been in the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore (NUS) where he received full professorship in 2016. From 2017-2018, Jin Song was the director of the Institute for Integrated Intelligent Systems (IIIS) at Griffith University and managed to double IIIS external funding in two years. Currently, he divided his time between NUS and Griffith. His research is in the areas of formal methods, safety and security systems, probabilistic reasoning and trusted machine learning. He co-founded PAT verification system which has attracted 4000+ registered users from 900+ organizations in 150 countries and won 20 Year ICFEM Most Influential System Award in 2018. Currently, he is the lead Investigator for Singapore-UK joint project on smart grid security and privacy (with Oxford University). He is the co-investigator of a number of large projects, including, “Securify: A Compositional Approach of Building Security Verified System“, “Trustworthy systems from untrusted Components”, Singtel-NUS Cyber Security joint lab and ARC Research Hub for Driving Farming Productivity and Disease Prevention. Jin Song is on the editorial board of ACM Transaction on Software Engineering and Methodology, Formal Aspects of Computing and Innovations in Systems and Software Engineering, A NASA Journal. He has successfully supervised 26 PhD students and many of them have become tenure track faculty members in the leading universities around the world.
Rachael Falk
Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre (CRC)
Rachael is the Chief Executive Officer of the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre (Cyber Security CRC). The Cyber Security CRC is focused on delivering research with impact and solving industry-led cyber security problems with innovative, research-driven solutions. Rachael comes to the Cyber Security CRC with a strong commercial and cyber security background having practiced as a lawyer for 15 years both in leading law firms and also in-house at Telstra Corporation Limited. Rachael became Telstra’s first General Manager of Cyber Influence. More recently she has been a cyber security consultant. She is the co-author of the ‘Five Knows of Cyber Security’, and has a keen interest in legal and policy issues surrounding cyber security. Rachael also holds a Bachelor of Arts from the ANU and Bachelor of Laws (Hons) from the University of Technology (Sydney) and in 2016 graduated from the ANU with an Advanced Masters in National Security Policy (Hons) from the National Security College.
Dr. Marthie Grobler
CSIRO’s Data61
An engaged and motivated researcher, Dr Marthie Grobler is passionate about making cyber-security more accessible for people in the pathway of the fourth industrial revolution. Her research, management and consulting experience spans multiple continents, national and state government departments, and a variety of domains linked with the digital domain. Over the last 12 years, Marthie has worked with organisations, government agencies and education institutions around the world. From applying governance models in the digital space to teaching children in rural areas about technology, her active involvement in her work distils clients with a thorough and effective approach to maximise their cyber-security knowledge towards practical application. She is passionate about enhancing people’s ability to use connected technology more powerfully in an ever-connected world. Her focus is on translating cyber-security skills to a more digestible format that can easily be adopted by technology users. Marthie currently holds a position as Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO, Data61 in Melbourne, Australia where she drives the research group’s work on human centric cyber-security.
Prof. Sanjay Jha
University of New South Wales
Professor Sanjay K. Jha is Director of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Laboratory (Cyspri) at UNSW. He also heads the Network Systems and Security Group (NetSys) at the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of New South Wales. His research activities cover a wide range of topics in networking including Network and Systems Security, Wireless Sensor Networks, Adhoc/Community wireless networks, Resilience and Multicasting in IP Networks. Sanjay has published over 200 articles in high quality journals and conferences and graduated 25 PhD students. He is the principal author of the book Engineering Internet QoS and a co-editor of the book Wireless Sensor Networks: A Systems Perspective. He is an editor of the IEEE Trans. of Secure and Dependable Computing (TDSC) and served as an associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC) and the ACM Computer Communication Review (CCR).
Erin Kenneally
U.S Department of Homeland Security
Erin Kenneally is currently serving out her role as Program Manager in the Cyber Security Division for the U.S. Dept of Homeland Security, Science & Technology Directorate. Her portfolio comprises cybersecurity research infrastructure, privacy, cyber risk economics, and technology ethics. She manages the IMPACT (Information Marketplace for Policy and Analysis of Cyber-risk and Trust), CYRIE (Cyber Risk Economics), and Data Privacy programs. Kenneally is Founder and CEO of Elchemy, Inc., and served as Technology-Law Specialist at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) and the Center for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) and Center for Evidence-based Security Research (CESR) at the University of California, San Diego. Erin is a licensed Attorney specializing in information technology law, including privacy technology, data protection, artificial intelligence ethics and legal risk, trusted information sharing, technology policy, cybercrime, data ethics, and emergent IT legal risks. She holds Juris Doctorate and Masters of Forensic Sciences degrees and is a graduate of Syracuse University and The George Washington University.
Prof. Ryan Ko
University of Queensland
Professor Ryan Ko is Chair and Director of UQ Cyber Security, a multi-disciplinary cyber security initiative at the University of Queensland, Australia. His cyber security research focuses on data provenance, cloud data flow tracking and cyber-attack attribution. He serves as expert advisor, board member, and director to several public and private sector organisations, including the INTERPOL, ISO, Nyriad, NZX-listed Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC), Cloud Security Alliance, European Research Council, Standards Australia, Singapore’s IT Standards Committee, Government of Tonga, NZ’s Minister for Communications’ Cyber Security Skills Taskforce, Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, Ministry of Justice and the NZ Defence Force’s Defence Technology Agency (DTA). Prior to UQ, he established NZ’s first cyber security graduate degree programmes and university research lab (CROW) at the University of Waikato in 2012, co-founded the annual New Zealand Cyber Security Challenge since 2014, wrote the initial draft of the NZ diploma in cyber security national curriculum, and co-established the New Zealand Institute of Security and Crime Science in 2017. His research has informed both policy and practice; he has patented, standardized (ISO/IEC 21878) and published more than 100 publications in the area of Cyber Security, Data Provenance, Homomorphic Encryption and Cloud Computing Security. Prior to academia, he was a lead computer scientist with HP Labs with several of his inventions commercialized as HP security products used by government agencies including the USA Treasury and IRS, and the Singapore GCloud. From 2014 to 2018, he served as Principal Investigator of STRATUS, a NZD12.2mil (incl. GST) MBIE Endeavour Fund grant researching user-centric cloud security technologies. He received his PhD and B.Engineering(Hons)(Computer Engineering) from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and is Fellow of the Cloud Security Alliance, member of IEEE Computer Society, the Royal Society of New Zealand, and a life member of the ACM.
Prof. Christopher Leckie
University of Melbourne
Chris Leckie is a Professor with the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne, is the Director of the University of Melbourne Academic Centre of Cyber Security Excellence (one of two such Commonwealth-funded centres in Australia), and is the Associate Director of the Oceania Cyber Security Centre. He has over three decades of research experience in artificial intelligence and machine learning, having led research teams at Telstra Research Laboratories, National ICT Australia (NICTA) and the University of Melbourne. His research on using machine learning for anomaly detection, fault diagnosis, cyber-security and the life sciences has led to a range of operational systems used in industry, as well as over 200 articles published in leading international conferences and journals. His work on filtering denial-of-service attacks on the Internet resulted in a commercial product that was developed by a local company and sold overseas.
Prof. Wenke Lee
Georgia Tech
Wenke Lee is a Professor of Computer Science and the John P. Imlay Jr. Chair in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. He is also a co-Executive Director of the Institute for Information Security & Privacy (IISP) at Georgia Tech. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Columbia University in the City of New York in 1999. His research expertise includes systems and network security, botnet detection and attribution, malware analysis, virtual machine monitoring, mobile systems security, and detection and mitigation of information manipulation on the Internet. Lee regularly leads large research projects funded by the National Science Foundation, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and private industry. Significant discoveries from his research group have been transferred to industry. He is an ACM Fellow.
Dr. Alexey Loginov
GrammaTech Inc
Alexey Loginov is the Vice President of Research at GrammaTech, a leading cyber-security research company. At GrammaTech, he oversees both technical and business aspects of the Research Division. Dr. Loginov’s research work at GrammaTech has focused on binary analysis technologies, including both formal and heuristic techniques. In recent years, work in his group began to explore statistical, machine-learning, and evolutionary-computation techniques in an effort to address challenges of scalability and precision in program analysis and repair. Dr. Loginov received a PhD in Computer Sciences from the University of Wisconsin, where his thesis exposed a new connection between machine learning and program analysis. Before joining GrammaTech, he worked at Hewlett-Packard and the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center.
A/Prof V Muthukkumarasamy
University of Griffith
Muthu obtained PhD from the University of Cambridge, England (Christ’s College Scholar) and BScEng with 1st Class Hons from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. He has pioneered the Network Security research and teaching at Griffith University and has been leading the Security Research Group at the Institute for Integrated and Intelligent Systems. Muthu is attached to School of Information and Communications Technology, Griffith University, Australia as Associate Professor. His current research areas include blockchain technology, cyber security, wireless sensor networks, trust management, and security protocols. He has been successful in attracting national and international funding for his research activities. He has a passion for innovation and had successful collaboration with Data61, Gold Coast Hospital, IBM Security Research lab etc. Recent funded projects on blockchain technology involved industry, inter-disciplinary and international elements. He has published over 150 articles in top ranking journals and conferences in his area of expertise. He has supervised over 30 PhD and research Masters students for successful completion. Google Scholar: h-index of 24, and i10-index of 51. He has also been leading a number of academia-industry workshops and symposiums on DLT since 2016. Muthu has been invited as keynote speaker at international conferences, various government departments, leading universities, and professional organisations on blockchain technology and cyber security. Muthu’s excellence in teaching and leadership has been recognised by a number of awards. During his tenure as the Deputy Head L&T, the School of ICT had become the No. 1 in Australia for Overall Student Satisfaction. He is now leading the Master of Cyber Security as Program Director.
Dr. Gareth Parker
Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group
Dr Gareth Parker is the Research Leader for Cyber Sensing and Shaping within the Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group. He leads the Next Generation Technologies cyber theme and is the national lead of the ‘C4I’ group within Defence’s international Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP). Gareth has published in areas of cyber security and communications signal processing including adaptive filtering and equalisation, spread spectrum, speech enhancement, and radio frequency emitter geolocation. Gareth is undertaking a rotational placement throughout 2019 as Program Leader Science Strategy and Policy.
Prof. Vitaly Shmatikov
Cornell Tech
Vitaly Shmatikov is a professor of computer science at Cornell Tech, where he works on computer security and privacy. His research group received the Caspar Bowden PET Award for Outstanding Research in Privacy Enhancing Technologies in 2008, 2014, and 2018, and several best-paper awards. Prior to joining Cornell, he worked at the University of Texas at Austin and SRI International.
Prof. RK Shyamasundar
IIT Bombay
Prof RK Shyamasundar is a JC Bose National Fellow and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT Bombay. He was the Founding Dean of School of Technology and Computer Science at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. He is a Fellow IEEE, Fellow ACM and Fellow of all National Science and Engineering academies and a Fellow of the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), Trieste. He has authored over 300 peer reviewed publications, 8 patents, and 8 books. More than 35 Ph.D. students have graduated under his guidance in India and USA. He has been a consultant to ESPRIT projects, Industries, Govt. of India etc. He is on the editorial board of Journal of parallel and distributed computing, Sadhana etc. He has served as Faculty/Visiting Scientist at various places like IBM TJ Watson Research Centre, UCSD, UIUC, SUNY at Albany, INRIA, IRISA, University of Cambridge, JAIST at Japan, Max Planck Institute at Saarbrucken, Visiting Distinguished Fellow of Royal Academy of Engineering, UK twice etc. One of his principal areas of research has been cyber security and is leading the Information Security Research and Development Centre (ISRDC) funded by MEITY at IIT Bombay. He has/had been on the boards of IIIT Allahabad, IIIT Jabalpur, IDRBT, Bombay Stock Exchange etc.
Prof. Willy Susilo
University of Wollongong
Willy Susilo received a PhD degree in Computer Science from University of Wollongong, Australia. He is a Professor and the Head of School of Computing and Information Technology and the director of Institute of Cybersecurity and Cryptology (iC2) at the University of Wollongong. He was previously awarded the prestigious ARC Future Fellow by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Researcher of the Year award in 2016 by the University of Wollongong. His main research interests include cybersecurity, cryptography and information security. His work has been cited more than 10,000 times in Google Scholar. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the Information journal. He has served as a program committee member in dozens of international conferences. He is currently serving as an Associate Editors in several international journals, including Elsevier Computer Standards and Interface and International Journal of Information Security (IJIS, Springer). He has published more than 350 research papers in the area of cybersecurity and cryptology. He is a senior member of IEEE.
Prof. Anton Van Den Hengel
Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML)
Prof van den Hengel is the founding Director of The Australian Centre for Visual Technologies (ACVT), an interdisciplinary research centre focussing on innovation in the production and analysis of visual digital media. Prof van den Hengel has had over 250 publications, 9 commercialised patents, and more than $20 million in research funding. Current research interests include interactive image-based modelling, large-scale video surveillance, and vision and language problems.
Prof. Vijay Varadharajan
University of Newcastle
Vijay Varadharajan is Global Innovation Chair Professor in Cyber Security at the University of Newcastle since March 2017. He is also the Director of Advanced Cyber Security Engineering Research Centre (ACSRC) at Newcastle. Previously he was Microsoft Chair Professor in Innovation in Computing at Macquarie University (2001 till March 2017). Before this he was Dean/Head of School of Computing and IT at University of Western Sydney (1996-2000). Previously, Vijay has headed worldwide Security Research at HP Labs based European Headquarters at Bristol, UK (1988-1995). During his tenure at HP Labs, under his leadership, some six different security technologies were transferred into successful HP products in Divisions, generating over billions of dollars. He also headed the Technical Security Strategy Initiative at HP under the Senior Vice President, USA. Before this, he was a Research Manager at British Telecom Research Labs. U.K (1987-88). During 1985-1986, first he was Research Fellow and then Lecturer in Computer Science at Plymouth and Reading Universities. He did his PhD in Computer and Communication Security in the U.K (1981-1984) from Plymouth and Exeter Universities in U.K., sponsored by BT Research Labs. He did his Electronic Engineering degree from Sussex University, UK (1978-1981). He was awarded the 1981 Prize of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, IEE, for outstanding performance at Sussex University as well as the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals Award (UK).
Prof. Yang Xiang
Swinburne University of Technology
Professor Yang Xiang received his PhD in Computer Science from Deakin University, Australia. He is currently a full professor and the Dean of Digital Research & Innovation Capability Platform, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. His research interests include cyber security, which covers network and system security, data analytics, distributed systems, and networking. In particular, he is currently leading his team developing active defense systems against large-scale distributed network attacks. He has published more than 200 research papers in many international journals and conferences. He served as the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Security and Communication Networks (Wiley), and the Editor of Journal of Network and Computer Applications. He is the Coordinator, Asia for IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Distributed Processing (TCDP). He is a Senior Member of the IEEE.
Prof. Wanlei Zhou
University of Technology Sydney
Professor Wanlei Zhou received the B.Eng and M.Eng degrees from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China in 1982 and 1984, respectively, and the PhD degree from The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia, in 1991. He also received a DSc degree (a higher Doctorate degree) from Deakin University in 2002. He is currently the Head of School of Software in University of Technology Sydney (UTS). Before joining UTS, Professor Zhou held the positions of Alfred Deakin Professor, Chair of Information Technology, and Associate Dean of Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment, Deakin University. Professor Zhou has been the Head of School of Information Technology twice (Jan 2002-Apr 2006 and Jan 2009-Jan 2015) and Associate Dean of Faculty of Science and Technology in Deakin University (May 2006-Dec 2008). Professor Zhou also served as a lecturer in University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, a system programmer in HP at Massachusetts, USA; a lecturer in Monash University, Melbourne, Australia; and a lecturer in National University of Singapore, Singapore. His research interests include security and privacy, bioinformatics, and e-learning. Professor Zhou has published more than 400 papers in refereed international journals and refereed international conferences proceedings, including many articles in IEEE transactions and journals.
Dr. Liming Zhu 
CSIRO’s Data61
Dr. Liming Zhu is a Research Director at Data61, CSIRO. He is also a conjoint full professor at University of New South Wales (UNSW). He is the chairperson of Standards Australia’s blockchain and distributed ledger committee. His research program has more than 300 people innovating in the area of big data platforms, computational science, blockchain, regulation technology, privacy and cybersecurity. He has published more than 150 academic papers on software architecture, secure systems and data analytics infrastructure.
