Cybersecurity researcher Sushil Jajodia received the 2020 W. Wallace McDowell Award from the IEEE Computer Science Society.
Mason Engineering cybersecurity researcher Sushil Jajodia received the 2020 W. Wallace McDowell Award from the IEEE Computer Science Society for his contributions to the scientific and engineering principles that enable effective adaptive cyber defense.
The McDowell Award is given to individuals for outstanding recent theoretical, design, educational, practical, or other similar innovative contribution that falls within the scope of IEEE CS interest.
Jajodia, a university professor with the Volgenau School of Engineering and the founding director of Center for Secure Information Systems, researches information secrecy, privacy, integrity, and availability problems in military, civil, and commercial sectors.
Today’s cyber defenses are largely static, Jajodia says. As a result, adversaries can systematically probe our networks, pre-plan their attacks, and ultimately persist for long times inside compromised networks and hosts.
“In response to this situation, we developed methods that make them less homogeneous and less predictable. Our research combined machine learning, behavioral science, operations research, control theory, and game theory for deciding where, when, and how to employ available options in dynamic, adversarial environments,” he says.
“We are all very proud of Dr. Jajodia for his many contributions to the cybersecurity field. It is wonderful to see his efforts so aptly recognized by the IEEE,” says Art Pyster, associate dean for research at the Volgenau School of Engineering.
In the video announcement of the award, the IEEE Computer Society, says, Jajodia “is widely recognized as an international leader and researcher and has a highly distinguished record of technical contributions to security and privacy.”
Jajodia will be honored at a ceremony in 2021. A video about the award is available here.