Meet Our Research Team

Dr. Lance Larson, Ph.D.

Coordinator, Cyber Security Program Office

Lance W. Larson, PhD is the Co-Director of San Diego State University's Graduate Program in Homeland Security. An expert in cyber security and homeland security, Dr. Larson brings years of government consulting and contracting experience to his leadership and research at SDSU. Dr. Larson has contributed invaluable research to ongoing government projects involving such issues as cyber warfare (offensive and defensive), maritime interdiction, and emergency management.

Qualifications:
• Ph.D. Applied Management and Decision Sciences: Information Systems Management Walden University (2009)
• Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) • Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
• Active Security Clearance

Cyber Grants & Contracts Won:
• N66001-18-R-0005 SSC PAC Code 82000 Defensive Cyberspace Operations Research, Development, Testing, Engineering, Integration, Maintenance, and Production Support (Navy SSC Pacific) MMAC IDIQ
• N00174-17-1-0010 P00001 Augmenting Effectiveness of Cyber Threat Information Systems (DOD Office of Naval Research) $310,000
• S0090 / N66001-18-F-0046 MOD 3 Cyber Security Defensive System Design (Navy SPAWAR) $100,000
• GFO-17-302 Chemehuevi Reservation Microgrid (CRM) CEC Cybersecurity Controls (California Energy Commission) $99,000
• 58418A Department of Homeland Security - Panga Interdiction Predictive Model - Risk/Behavior Based Model for Maritime Interdictions $50,000
• U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) - Activity No. 2017-31020A Technical Assistance for the METU Smart Campus Project (Cybersecurity) $10,000

Cybersecurity Research Interests & Specialties:
• Cyber Security Subject Matter Expert
• Cyber Offensive and Defensive Operations
• Safeguard and Counter-measure Planning

John McMillan

Coordinator, Cyber Security Program Office

Through a variety of role at the SDSU Research Foundation, Mr. McMillan has supported the writing, development and execution of federal, state and local grant opportunities, which are aimed at advancing the intellectual capacity of the University. He earned an MBA SDSU in 2013 and has worked at the Research Foundation since 2011. Mr. McMillan was selected as a 2018 Presidents Leadership Fund recipient for his work at SDSU, as well as, a 2017 E. Kika De La Garza Fellow, a prestigious USDA fellowship program.

Mr. McMillan currently serve as Program Director in Research Advancement, where he spends half his time leading SDSU’s involvement with the San Diego Regional Energy Innovation Network (SDREIN), managing the utilization of University resources in support of Network companies, as well as, the relationship with private industry partners. He spends the other half identifying funding opportunities that align with SDSU’s Areas of Excellence, assisting faculty in generating extramural grant proposals, developing teams and preparing large-scale responses to select funding opportunities, and organizing on-campus events with various federal funding agency representatives, government and industry officials, and private funders. He has been instructing the Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) team, an MBA capstone qualifying course, since 2012.

Mr. McMillan founded a consulting firm in 2014, which provided tech-to-market commercialization support and grant development assistance specifically within the SBIR and STTR programs. Through this he was able to support a variety of highly specialized research teams, which focused novel approaches to cybersecurity, data recovery, “dark-web” applications, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, cellular antennas, and cleantech, which had received funding from DARPA, DOD, DOE, NSF ,and NIH.

Dr. Bongsik Shin, PhD

Dr. Bongsik Shin is a professor of Management Information Systems. For over 20 years, he has been teaching cybersecurity, computer networking, and business intelligence (data warehousing & data mining, and statistics). In 2017, he was chosen for a Teaching Excellence Award by the Fowler College of Business. His academic activities have been funded by 27 internal and external grants. He has published 30+ research articles in top quality journals including IEEE Transactions Engineering Management, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, MIS Quarterly, Journal of MIS, Journal of AIS, Decision Support Systems, European Journal of Information Systems, Information Systems Journal and Communications of the ACM. He authored the book ‘A Practical Introduction to the Enterprise Network and Security Management’ (CRC Press, 2017).

Qualifications:
• PhD, Information Systems, University of Arizona (1997)
• MS, Business Statistics, Barnard Baruch College (1992)
• Assistant Professor: University of Nebraska, Omaha (1997~1999)
• Professor: San Diego State University (1999 ~ present)

Cyber Grants & Contracts Won:
• GFO-17-302: “Demonstrate Business Case for Advanced Microgrids in Support of California 's Energy and GHG Policies, Chemehuevi Reservation Microgrid CEC Cybersecurity Controls”, 2018, $99,000
• N00174-17-1-0010 P00001: Actionable Intelligence-Oriented Cyber Threat Modeling, DoD Office of Naval Research, 2017, $310,000

Cybersecurity Research Interests & Specialties:
• Cyber threat intelligence & threat modeling
• Data & machine learning-driven threat detection & prevention
• Source address validation
• Ransomware detection & prevention

Dr. Steven Andrés, Ph.D.

Steven Andrés, Ph.D. is the founder of Special Ops Security and serves as its Managing Principal. He is a Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) and earned the distinctions of Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA), Project Management Professional (PMP), and the well-respected Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). As a three-time commercially successful published author and occasional freelance writer, his works on security best practices have reached millions of print and online subscribers. With extensive experience managing high-availability networks in the Entertainment, Health Care, Financial, and Higher Education industries, he is frequently invited to speak on secure architecture best practices and information security current events.

Qualifications:
• Ph.D. in Information Systems & Technology from Claremont Graduate University
• M.S. in Homeland Security from San Diego State University
• B.A. in Business Economics from University of California Los Angeles (Minor in Accounting; Specialization in Computer Science)

Cybersecurity Research Interests & Specialties:
• Disposable Social Media Profiles
• Fourth & Fifth Generation Warfare
• Hardening Network Infrastructure
• Host and Network Security
• Ethical Hacking

Dr. Christopher P. Paolini

Christopher Paolini is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at San Diego State University. Chris is the recipient of grants from the Department of Energy and NASA, and five NSF Office of CyberInfrastructure awards. Christopher Paolini's current research interests include Internet of Things device development, machine learning, cybersecurity, embedded systems, cloud computing, big data analytics, deep learning, high performance computing, scientific computing and numerical modeling, high speed (100gbps) networking, and cyberinfrastructure development.

Qualifications:
• Ph.D Computational Science (2007), San Diego State University
• M.S. Computer Science (1998), San Diego State University
• B.S. Computer Science (1991), San Diego State University

Cyber Grants & Contracts Won:
• NSF Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) CC* Storage Grant 1659169 - $199,998.00
• Implementation of a Distributed, Shareable, and Parallel Storage Resource at San Diego State University to Facilitate High-Performance Computing for Climate Science
• NSF Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships I-Corps Grant 1313570 - $50,000 Proximity
• NSF Office of CyberInfrastructure CC-NIE Grant 1245312 - $498,597 • Network Infrastructure: Implementation of a Science DMZ at San Diego State University to Facilitate High-Performance Data Transfer for Scientific Applications
• NASA Grant NRA NNH09ZTT001N: Research Opportunities in Combustion Science, Residence Time Driven Flame Spread Over Solid Fuels, $398,614
• US Department of Energy (DOE), National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Web-based CO2 Subsurface Modeling, Geologic Sequestration Training and Research Funding Opportunity Number: DE-FOA-0000032, Simulation and Risk Assessment, $288,691
• NSF Office of CyberInfrastructure MRI Grant 0922702 - $255,873 MRI: Acquisition of High Speed Network Infrastructure for High Performance Distributed Computation in the Colleges of Science and Engineering
• NSF Office of CyberInfrastructure CI-TEAM Grant 0753283 - $249,796 CI-TEAM Demonstration Project: CyberCHEQS: A Service-Oriented Cyberinfrastructure (SOCI) for Thermochemical Data and Computation Services

Dr. Eric G. Frost

Eric Frost is a Professor, Co-Director of the Homeland Security Graduate Program, and Director of the Viz Center. He taught in the Geological Sciences Department for several decades, then changed the focus of his work on finding patterns for oil-and-gas discovery to finding patterns for Law Enforcement, Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief, and other challenges like counter human trafficking, Cybersecurity, and border enhancement. Many of his projects involve work in Africa (Kenya, Somalia) as well as with assisting with imagery, GIS, social media, and collaboration during disasters, public health concerns, and ongoing security and trade efforts. visualization

Qualifications:
• Past research has focused on use of large data sets as for oil and gas exploration and satellite imaging.
• Work also focused on use of high-bandwidth fiber, collaborative visualizations, near real-time sensor networks, Internet of Things, and blockchain as parts of solving problems for borders, disasters, and development.

Cyber Grants & Contracts Won:
• DHS Science and Technology, Next-generation Incident Command System (NICS) disaster response software further enhancements, $250,000
• National Geospatial Intelligence Agency through SPAWAR, Latin America Imaging and GIS for Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief $502,000
• Naval Research Lab, Services-Oriented Architecture Innovation Lab project, $294,840
• American Red Cross, Situation Awareness Cloud Computing project (SitCell), $120,000
• SPAWAR-NORTHCOM x24 Mexico Technical Support Project, $70,000
• DHS Science and Technology, Next-generation Incident Command System (NICS) disaster response software, $150,000
• INMARSAT Broadband Global Area Network field research $50,000
• US Navy-SPAWAR Cloud Computing for Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief Project, $499,412
• ITT Corporation for US Navy, Services Oriented Architecture, $50,000
• US Navy-SPAWAR Nonclassified Enclave Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief project $65,216
• US Navy-SPAWAR Nonclassified Enclave Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief project $1,575,754
• Navy Research Laboratory, Data for Google Earth Client, $91,000

Cyber Security Research Interests and Specialties:
Imaging and mapping, pattern recognition, social media, high-bandwidth fiber, international collaboration, near real-time sensor networks, and decision support

Dr. Aaron Elkins

Aaron C. Elkins is an Assistant Professor in the department of Management Information Systems and Director of the SDSU Artificial Intelligence Lab. Prior to joining SDSU, he was a postdoctoral researcher at both BORDERS a DHS Center of Excellence for Border Security and Imperial College London. Elkins researches human-robotics interactions that incorporate AI that predicts human emotion and deception based on physiological and nonverbal behavior. Elkins conducts experiments investigating automated deception detection in the laboratory, borders, and airports. Elkins is also currently leading a project for the Navy investigating how to protect warship networks from cyber threats and adversaries.

Qualifications:
• PhD, Management Information Systems (2011), University of Arizona
• BS, Information Systems (2004), San Diego State University

Cyber Grants & Contracts Won:
• Field-ready embodied agent screeners
• Social network analysis to predict terrorism
• Detecting unconscious signals of trustworthiness
• Automated classification of facial expressions in video.
• A Knowledge Management Approach for Assisting in Identifying Victims of Human Sex Trafficking. Communications of the AIS.
• Grants from DHS S&T, NSF, Defense Academy for Credibility Assessment, and the Center for Identification Technology Research for several multi-institutional research projects
• Grants from Singapore government for projects in Malaysian-Singapore borders

Cyber Security Research Interests and Specialties:
Vocal Emotion & Deception detection, Affective Computing Cognitive Dissonance & Attitudes, machine learning, statistics, signal processing, credibility assessment, decision making & computer-mediated communication, data warehousing & reporting

Mr. Joseph A. Oregón

Mr. Joseph A. Oregón is a lecturer for the Department of Management Information Systems at San Diego State University. An expert in cyber security, Mr. Oregón was nationally recognized in 2016 by the Department of Homeland Security’s, Office of Intelligence and Analysis and awarded, Excellence in the Field of Cyber Protection for outstanding work in the creation and contribution of a regional Cyber Intelligence Unit for a local intelligence entity. Mr. Oregón has assisted in the development of a public sector Cyber Disruption Response Planning Annex and various Cyber Disruption Response Teams for both the San Diego and Imperial Valley regions; Mr. Oregón is also recognized for assisting in the development of the California Cyber Security Integration Center (CAL CISC), which is responsible for strengthening the state's cybersecurity strategy, intelligence sharing environment (ISE) and improving inter-agency, cross-sector coordination (to reduce the likelihood and severity of cyber-attacks). Mr. Oregón is a proud U.S. Army veteran, a published author and freelance writer on the subject of Cyber Threat Intelligence.

Qualifications:
• M.S., Information Technology with emphasis in Security Management; Colorado Technical University (2016)
• B.S., Information Technology with emphasis in Software Systems Engineering; Colorado Technical University (2012)
• Various Cyber Security Certifications
• Various U.S. Army and U.S. Navy schools
• Active Security Clearance

Cybersecurity Research Interests & Specialties:
• Advance Persistent Threat
• Cyber Threat Intelligence
• Reverse Engineering
• Weaponized AI
• Dark-Web