2023 Mississippi Cybersecurity Faculty Retreat

Dr. Hamed Okhravi is a senior staff member in the Secure Resilient Systems and Technology Group, where he leads programs and conducts research in the area of systems security. His research interests include cybersecurity, science of security, security evaluation, and operating systems. He is the recipient of the Stratus Award for Cloud Computing (2020), two R&D 100 Awards (2020 and 2018), MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Best Invention Award (2019), MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Team Award (2015), National Security Agency's 3rd Annual Best Scientific Cybersecurity Paper Competition Award (2015), and MIT Lincoln Laboratory’s Early Career Technical Achievement Award (2014) for his research.

He is an associate editor of the IEEE Security & Privacy journal. He has also served twice as the program chair for the ACM Moving Target Defense (MTD) workshop, the poster chair of the IEEE SecDev Conference, and a guest editor of the IEEE Security & Privacy – Special Issue on Hacking without Humans. In addition, he has served on the steering committee of the ACM MTD workshop, and as a program committee member for many academic conferences and workshops including NDSS, USENIX Security, ACM CCS, RAID, AsiaCCS, IEEE DAC, IEEE SecDev, IEEE/ACM ICCAD, MILCOM, and ACNS, among others. He has also served on the National Science Foundation's Panel for the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace program.

Okhravi actively contributes to various national, Laboratory, and division-level strategic planning activities, and has led the development of multiple national-level R&D roadmaps. He has also led the development of multiple systems security technologies that have successfully transitioned outside and inside Lincoln Laboratory. His work has resulted in multiple U.S. patents and numerous publications in top-tier venues.

Okhravi’s current focus is researching and developing a Resilient Mission Computer, a new computer system design in which important security properties are inherent and multiple large classes of vulnerabilities are prevented by design.

Okhravi earned his MS and PhD degrees in electrical and computer engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006 and 2010, respectively.

Marcus Cooley is a Principal Program Manager for cybersecurity at Microsoft with the Autonomy, Space, Critical Industry, and Innovation team (ASCII) organized within Mission Engineering.

The ASCII team is investing in advanced scenarios across satellite communication, 5G, Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) and critical infrastructure.

His primary responsibilities include identifying gaps and engineering cybersecurity solutions to enable systems to continuously operate despite the highest level of cyber threats.

Previous Roles

Prior to joining the Microsoft team, Cooley completed a 24-year career in the United States Air Force. During his military career, he served in a variety of joint and service-level communications & cyberspace operation assignments to include offensive cyber operations, command and controls and deployed communications.

He has deployed in support of Operations SOUTHERN WATCH and ENDURING FREEDOM with a command tour in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan.

He also served as the commander of the Presidential communications travel team and Chief of Plans and Policy, White House Communications Agency, Washington, D.C., where he directed communications support and cyber defense for the President, Vice President, National Security Staff, White House Staff, and the First Lady of the United States.

He also commanded the 89th Airlift Support Group managed the information technology provisioning and cyber defense of Air Force One and additional national airborne assets.

Education

Cooley holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Master of Business Administration/Management, Master of Military Operational Art and Science, and Master of Strategics Studies, and is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).