Auburn University's McCrary Institute for Cyber and Critical Infrastructure Security on Thursday announced the addition of six more senior fellows to its 2024 class.
The six new senior fellows join 27 others New Senior Fellows The fellows were announced in February. The university said the experts and staff will add cybersecurity and national security expertise across government and the private sector. Fellows will serve on a three-year rotation.
“We are thrilled that these six esteemed individuals will be joining the McCrary Institute,” said institute director Frank Siluffo.
“With their decades of experience, they add significant expertise to our public policy efforts and efforts to strengthen public-private partnerships. From cybercrime to cutting-edge technology to bridging the gap between the public and private sectors, they will all help us achieve our goal of making our nation a safer place, given the new and growing threats we face in cyberspace.”
The six new Senior Fellows, with accompanying biographies provided by Auburn University, are:
Former U.S. Congressman John Katko
Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security
John Katko is an accomplished leader who served as a Congressman representing Central New York from 2015 until his retirement in 2022.
Early in his career in Congress, John became a strong voice on the House Homeland Security Committee. In 2020, he was selected to lead Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee. As a Senator, John led border security efforts and focused on cybersecurity, transportation, and airport security. Additionally, John served on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee for eight years.
During his time representing New York's 24th District, John achieved significant legislative success with 98 bills passed in the House of Representatives, 45 of which became law. Through his work, John brought millions of dollars to his district in Central New York.
John has built strong relationships across the political spectrum in New York and Washington. He is highly regarded for his bipartisan work and has been consistently ranked as one of the most bipartisan lawmakers by the bipartisan Lugar Center. As Chair of the Republican Governance Group, John is responsible for expanding political engagement with results-oriented lawmakers.
Prior to joining Congress, John served for nearly 20 years as a federal organized crime prosecutor at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he prosecuted hundreds of complex criminal cases involving organized crime, drug and human trafficking, murder, and political corruption. He has extensive experience at the northern, southern, and maritime borders of the United States. In addition, he served as a litigator for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and worked as a private antitrust and commercial litigator.
John and his wife Robin live in Camillus, New York and enjoy spending time with their three adult sons.
Blood Medieval
Executive Vice President, Booz Allen Hamilton
Brad Medaily is Executive Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton and serves as the firm's senior cybersecurity officer. He works on cyber missions for national level clients, including the intelligence community, U.S. Cyber Command, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Department of Defense (DOD). He is responsible for addressing some of the nation's major cybersecurity challenges, including protecting critical infrastructure, securing the supply chain, safeguarding emerging technologies/platforms (AI, 5G, medical devices, weapons and space systems), and defending the extended federal enterprise from cyber attacks.
Brad is passionate about improving the nation's capabilities in cyberspace by integrating emerging and intelligence technologies to deliver next-generation, full-spectrum cyber solutions. He leads a multi-disciplinary team of cyber operators, AI and machine learning engineers, software developers, and cloud engineers to develop and deliver these solutions across federal and commercial markets.
Brad has been named a 2023 Top 50 Cybersecurity Leader, a 2021 Federal 100 Award recipient, the 2020 Cyber Executive of the Year by the Northern Virginia Technology Council, and a finalist for WashingtonExec's 2020 Cybersecurity Industry Executive of the Year award.
Brad earned his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and his Master of Science degree from Johns Hopkins University.
Christopher D. Rovelli
Senior Vice President for Cyber, Space and National Security Policy, U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Chris leads the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's team focused on national security issues, including cybersecurity, space, defense, ICTS security, federal procurement policy, and public-private sector cyber operations cooperation and information sharing. In this role, Chris leads the Chamber's national security advocacy on high-profile policy issues both domestically and internationally.
Additionally, Chris is responsible for managing the Chamber's relationships with the U.S. Government's key negotiating partners in the national security and law enforcement sectors. He also served as Chief of Staff to former U.S. Chamber CEO Thomas J. Donahue, advising him on domestic and international issues, program integration and strategy. Chris works closely with members of the Chamber's executive leadership team on policy initiatives and programs important to the U.S. business community.
Prior to joining the Chamber, Chris served in the Federal Government working on national security issues, many of which were overseas in a variety of environments. Chris began his career as a corporate lawyer for an international law firm, focusing his practice on international private equity, mergers and acquisitions, and securities transactions.
Chris serves on the Executive Committee of the National Crypto Foundation Board of Directors and is a visiting lecturer at the University of Chicago.
He received his J.D. from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Bradon Rogers
Chief Customer Officer, island
Bradon Rogers is Island's Chief Customer Officer and is responsible for overseeing the technical aspects of all client interactions, bringing extensive experience in cybersecurity, enterprise software and cloud technology. Bradon has over 25 years of experience in cybersecurity, during which he has held executive leadership roles at some of the largest companies in the industry.
Previously, Bradon served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales Engineering at Mimecast, where he managed field technical operations globally. Prior to Mimecast, Bradon served as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales Engineering and Product Marketing at Symantec. As part of Symantec's executive leadership team, Bradon led the global sales engineering organization and was also responsible for crafting the go-to-market messaging and strategy for the company's product portfolio and numerous acquisitions. He joined Symantec following its acquisition of Bluecoat and held the same role, where he was responsible for guiding technical excellence across the field sales team as well as leading product strategy. Bradon has also held similar executive and technical leadership roles at McAfee, Secure Computing and CipherTrust.
Bradon is also co-author of “Security Battleground: An Executive Field Manual,” a book designed to provide security and technology guidance to executives with no formal training in these areas. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from Auburn University, where he serves on the Advisory Board for the College of Business and Auburn Athletics. Bradon also serves on the board of directors for The Exceptional Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to serving adults with special needs.
Kirsten Todd
president, Wandross
Kierstein Todd is President of Wondros, a globally-acclaimed, services-driven creative firm that transforms the complex stories of the world's most innovative organizations, businesses, and individuals into dynamic content that communicates culture and inspires change. The storytelling Wondros develops equips partners with creative content to build bridges with diverse communities and generate social and policy impact in measurable ways.
She is the former Chief of Staff of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which has a budget of approximately $3 billion and more than 3,000 employees and contractors. In that role, she was responsible for planning, allocating resources and developing long-term goals in support of the department's objectives.
She is also a strategic advisor to venture capital firms and serves on the boards of companies focused on open source software, memory-safe languages, and neurodiversity.
Prior to her role at CISA, Kiersten served as Managing Director of the Cyber Readiness Institute (CRI), a nonprofit organization that develops free cybersecurity tools for small and medium-sized businesses around the world. She co-founded CRI with the CEOs of Mastercard, Microsoft, and PSP Partners, as well as the former CEO of IBM.
Mr. Kiersten also served as CEO of Liberty Group Ventures, LLC, where he worked with senior industry leaders on cyber risk management, including educating and threat briefing senior management and the board of directors.
Her contributions to the federal government include serving as a professional staff member in the U.S. Senate where she co-authored legislation establishing the Department of Homeland Security and as Executive Director of President Obama's Commission on Strengthening National Cybersecurity.
Todd's commentary appears frequently on television and in print media across the country.
Kiersten graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Public Policy and earned a Master's in Public Policy from Harvard University.
Brian Ware
entrepreneur
Ware is a serial entrepreneur and has served as CEO of five VC/PE backed companies (Digital Sandbox, Haystax Technology, Next5, LookingGlass, and his latest company, which is currently in stealth). All of his companies are software/AI/cyber/intelligence focused companies serving the national security community, law enforcement, and/or major brands. Ware served as Under Secretary for Cyber Policy at DHS and the first Presidentially appointed Director of Cybersecurity at CISA. Ware currently serves on the boards of several companies and non-profits including the CyberGuild, an organization dedicated to increasing cyber awareness and promoting diversity in the cyber workforce.
The McClary Institute was founded at Auburn University in 2015 and focuses on sound cybersecurity policy, cybersecurity education and applied cybersecurity research. In 2022, There were 2,385 ransomware attacks reported to the FBI, with over a third of those attacks targeting US critical infrastructure organizations.
Grayson Everett is the state and politics editor for Yellow Hammer News. You can follow him on Twitter. Grayson
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