Greetings! It’s been awhile since I updated the blog, but I have been sprinkling updates throughout the site since my last post. The biggest update is that Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAM) have been posted for most of my journal articles! Some of my publications are still under embargo, and some I could not find permissions for. However, a majority of the articles now have free access AAM versions posted at the end of each abstract paragraph. I hope this increases access for you and your fellow researchers!
Mathematics in Cyber Research Pre-Orders!
I’m so excited to share that Mathematics in Cyber Research is now available for pre-orders! This text is designed for students and early career professionals and will give an overview of the applications of various mathematics fields and topics to cybersecurity. Stop by my Books page for links to pre-order!
New Conference Papers
Three new conference papers are now available on my Projects page!
We examine mail voting security and create a process map for mail voting, adding an assessment of where and when vulnerabilities exist.
We consider poll worker as trusted insiders and test our threat training modules for usability and ease of use. This supports our empirical work that shows poll workers learn about potential cyber, physical, and insider threats at polling places by interacting with our training modules.
We investigate how project delivery methods and contractual arrangements might influence collaboration during scheduling practices in construction. Our results show that schedules are commonly used as contractual documents. Contractual arrangements need to be improved to address the lack of application of collective knowledge to develop, review, and validate schedules for construction projects regardless of the delivery method used.
Papers 1 and 2 can be found under Elections Security in the Cybersecurity portion of the Projects page. Paper 3 can be found under Other Areas.
Recent Awards
I am very humbled to be recognized with a University System of Maryland Board of Regents Award for Excellence in Public Service. This the system's highest faculty honor.
I had an amazing team of professors and students working with me on our elections security research. We implemented threat training for over 1,900 poll workers in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, during last fall's General Election. We are continuing our work on risk models for both mail-based and in-person voting.
The U.S. Elections Assistance Commission also just recognized Anne Arundel County with a 2020 Clearinghouse Award for Outstanding Innovation in Election Cybersecurity and Technology! I am thrilled for our community partner, and their transparency and commitment to elections security is an asset for free and fair elections.
This is all in addition to last fall’s Towson University BTU Partnership Award, which recognized our ongoing work with Anne Arundel and Harford Counties. Links to related press releases and articles are available on my Awards page.
Process Map for Mail-based Voting
We are in the final review stages on our submissions to the upcoming IISE Annual Conference. One of the papers we submitted builds a process map for mail-based voting. A second submission addresses usability of online threat training modules for poll workers.
For brevity, we do not include the full process node descriptions in our first paper submission. However, those node descriptions are now available on my Projects page in the Cybersecurity / Elections Security section under the posting for “A Process Map and Risk Assessment for Mail-based Voting.” The paper is under final review, and I will link to the paper when cleared to do so.
Elections Security Media
Fall 2020 was a busy season for our research in elections security. I am very proud of the training modules that were deployed in Maryland counties as well as my team’s research on the security of mail-based voting. All media engagements for elections security are now summarized on this page; they are also listed in the index on my main Media page.
INFORMS Elections Security Panel
In late August, I was a guest on the virtual INFORMS panel on elections security, as part of their webinar series on operations research and policymaking. Brigadier General Francis X. Taylor (Ret.) of US Cyberdome and I spoke about the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election. I also discussed the implications of voting during a pandemic and the scale-up of mail-based voting. You can watch the webinar here. It is also linked on my Media page under Live Events.
Op-Ed in The Hill
I am happy to share that my opinion piece on cyber, physical and insider threats to elections, especially amid the ongoing COVID tragedy, has been published in The Hill. I am hoping that policymakers take notice and consider the full scale of threats while making preparations for both mail and in-person voting this fall.
Funding for Elections Security Research
I am writing this post in May 2020, and I hope everyone reading it is doing well and managing their unique situations related to COVID-19.
The pandemic has changed all of our lives and has raised new questions related to elections security. I’m happy that Towson University recognizes the impact of the virus on faculty research focus and project designs and has provided funding for student researchers working on COVID-19 related projects. Josh Dehlinger and I were granted funding to consider mail-in voting impacts and risks to elections security, and this support aligns with the BTU Investment that Towson University is making to the overall research. We are excited to update our models and hope to share preliminary results soon.
Anne Arundel County, Maryland, also funded work to customize our poll workers training for their county’s process and voting locations. We continue to work with the county to support their needs and assist them in adapting to updated policies and procedures due to the pandemic.
We are looking forward to both of these projects and hope that we can continue to provide value to our community partners in this trying time.
Problem Solved Podcast
Problem Solved is the podcast from the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers (IISE) and features conversations with industrial and systems engineers about their work, ideas and solutions. I am featured on the latest episode (season 1, episode 20) regarding elections security and the Handbook of Military and Defense Operations Research. The podcast is available on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, and other services. You can also find the episode here.