Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham

I. The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, MA (January 1989 – January 2005)

Roles: Research and Development, Team Lead, Consultant to US Government, Department Head, Chief Technologist

Research: My 16 years of experience at MITRE has given me the opportunity to work on research, development, and technology transfer projects. I secured research funding from a number of sponsors including the Air Force, Navy, Army, NSA, and CIA as well as consulted for the IRS. Between 1989 and 1995, I led team research efforts and designed and developed algorithms and prototypes for secure distributed database systems, secure object systems, inference controllers and secure deductive data systems. I proved that the inference problem was unsolvable and developed solutions to limited aspects of this problem and this work was commended by NSA https://www.utdallas.edu/~bxt043000/ 1990_%20A_Year_of_Progress.pdf Between 1993 and 1999, we also developed distributed object-based, real-time systems and transferred the technology to the AWACS program and co-founded a working group at OMG (which eventually became a SIG). Additionally, I was the head of MITRE's research initiatives in data management (1994-1997) and gave MITRE international visibility in data management, data security and data mining. My work at MITRE has resulted in prestigious awards including the IEEE CS Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement Award (1997), the IEEE Fellow Award (2003) and AAAS Fellow award (2003), research publications and three US patents on database inference control. An article about my work was published by MITRE in 2003 https://www.utdallas.edu/~bxt043000/Press-Releases/Bhavani-MITRE-article-with-Marty-Faga.pdf

Administration and Consulting: For over four years (1995-1999), I was the head of a department in Data and Information Management and grew the staff from eight to about 28 (which included finding work for the staff at approx. 200K/staff/yr.). Members of my department included 4 women (excluding myself), as well as from the African American and Latino American communities.

I was a consultant to the NSA in data security for six years (1991-1997) and received a commendation letter from the chief of NSA/R23 in 1994 (1993-1999) https://www.utdallas.edu/~bxt043000/Bhavani-NSA-Letter.pdf. I also managed 15 research projects under the CMS Massive Digital Data Systems Initiative (MDDS) for CIA and NSA focusing on data mining/analytics.

In January 1999, at the request of the then MITRE President, I worked on a high priority project as a software expert to Treasury/IRS (a new FFRDC at that time for MITRE) on the software research credit program (examining software research credit tax filed by Fortune 500 companies including multiple software companies, banks, insurance companies, telecom companies and retail companies). This work was carried out between January 1999 and September 2001 (Note: I have continued to work on this project as a consultant to the Treasury via MITRE since October 2004; this work will be discussed under the section on Consulting). During this time (1999-2001) I was also a chief technologist for the Air Force Center and provided strategic directions for around 500 technical staff.

II. National Science Foundation, Arlington, VA (October 1, 2001 – September 30, 2004)

IPA Position from MITRE: I was an IPA (Intergovernmental Personnel Act) at the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Arlington, VA, from the MITRE Corporation for three years and managed a budget l of approx. $90M (e.g., IDM, ITR, and Cyber Trust). At NSF, I was the program director of the IDM (Information and Data Management) in 2002 and was also the focal point for Information Management for NSF's Information Technology Research Initiative (ITR) in 2003. In addition, I established the Data and Applications Security Special Program in 2003 and co-founded the Cyber Trust theme in 2004. I was involved in interagency activities in data mining for counter-terrorism. I also advised the DHHS (health and human services) and reviewed proposals on the billion-dollar States' Bioterrorism initiative. We also worked on interagency initiatives including the founding of the KDD program with IARPA. While at NSF, I was a member of multiple initiatives including in bioinformatics, geoinformatics, sensor information management, and math/science partnerships. I also gave featured addresses on data mining for counter-terrorism at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the United Nations.

III. New America Foundation (2017-2018)

I worked as a non-resident Cyber Security Policy Fellow at the New America Foundation. I focused on Cyber Security workforce development (e.g., NIST/NICE initiative). I also focused on Engaging Rural America in Cyber Security as well as in Cyber Security Governance. I am following up on these initiatives (e.g., teaching short courses in Cyber Security Governance at UT Dallas School of Management 2022-2023) as well as serving on the committee for NIST/NICE conference 2023-2024).