In celebration of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, Mount Saint Mary College’s Center for Cybersecurity will be hosting a series of free, public talks by local leaders in the field.
All of the presentations will take place on campus in Aquinas Hall, Room 053. Some talks will also be available as Zoom presentations. For a full list of presentations, including Zoom registration links, visit https://cyber.msmc.edu/cybersecurity-speaker-series/
Alex Valentin, Chief Information Officer at the Mount, will present “The State of Cybersecurity at Mount Saint Mary College” on Thursday, October 13, at 4 p.m. Valentin has more than 40 years of experience in the IT industry, from banking and the finance sector on Wall Street to big pharma and the medical industry in the Hudson Valley. Valentin’s work has often centered on security.
SecurEd Inc. employees Paige Zellapa, director of Operations, and Emily Vogel, software architect, will present “Cyber4All: Interdisciplinary Cybersecurity” on Thursday, October 27, at 4 p.m. This presentation will be done via Zoom, but participants are invited to a live screening at the college if desired.
At SecurEd Inc., Zellapa coordinates the software development and content curation processes for two cybersecurity education products. She is passionate about cyber education and teaches as an adjunct professor at Towson University. She received her Bachelor’s in Information Systems and Master’s in Computer Science from Towson University.
Vogel is a master’s student at Towson University, studying Computer Science. At SecurEd Inc., Vogel is responsible for developing and planning features for various products.
Additional talks will include:
- November 3: Frank Casabianca, National Security Agency (NSA) and visiting professor of the United States Military Academy West Point, will present “A Cryptographic Tour of the Enigma.”
- November 10: Mount alumnus Brendan DuRoss '17, a Cloud Security Analyst at Tanium, will present “Lessons Learned as an Incident Responder.”
The Mount’s Center for Cybersecurity provides program guidance and oversight to the college’s Cybersecurity major and concentration; brings expert speakers to campus; provides cyber defense resources to the campus and the community; and more. The initiative is maintained by the college’s Division of Mathematics & Information Technology and supported by an external advisory board of local and national industry professionals, as well as faculty from the Mount and other institutions.
“Cybersecurity is everyone’s business,” noted Sagar Raina, associate professor of Information Technology. “As an institute of higher education in the Hudson Valley, the Mount has a critical role to play in educating people about cybersecurity. The college’s Center for Cybersecurity, through workshops and boot camps led by expert faculty, will provide effective resources for local businesses, schools, and government organizations in cyber defense education and training.”