CyberSec Research Lab

Research Team

Our research team comprises former national laboratory and university researchers with deep expertise in cybersecurity detection, threat analysis, and evaluation methodology.

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KZ

Dr. Katherine Zhao

Director

Former MIT Lincoln Lab

15 years at MIT Lincoln Lab leading the Cyber Security and Information Sciences division. PhD in Computer Science from MIT. Published 28 peer-reviewed papers on adversarial machine learning and automated threat detection. Led DARPA-funded research on autonomous cyber defense systems.

MR

Dr. Marcus Rivera

Principal Researcher

Former MITRE

12 years at MITRE Corporation as a Senior Principal Engineer in the Cybersecurity division. MS and PhD from Johns Hopkins. Co-author of the MITRE ATT&CK evaluation methodology for enterprise detection products. Expert in detection engineering and threat simulation frameworks.

AG

Dr. Ananya Gupta

Senior Research Scientist

Former CMU CyLab

8 years at Carnegie Mellon CyLab working on machine learning applications for network security. PhD from CMU. Published in IEEE S&P, USENIX Security, and ACM CCS. Specializes in anomaly detection algorithms and false positive reduction techniques.

TE

Dr. Thomas Erikson

Research Scientist

Former Georgia Tech

6 years at Georgia Tech's Institute for Information Security and Privacy. PhD from Georgia Tech. Research focus on endpoint detection benchmarking and automated malware analysis. Contributed to the AV-TEST methodology for endpoint protection evaluation.

ML

Dr. Mei Lin

Research Scientist

Former Sandia National Labs

10 years at Sandia National Laboratories in the Cyber Sciences group. PhD from UC Berkeley. Expertise in supply chain security, hardware-software trust boundaries, and formal verification of security properties. Active TS/SCI clearance holder.

JO

Dr. James Okafor

Research Scientist

Former NRL

9 years at the Naval Research Laboratory in the Center for High Assurance Computer Systems. PhD from University of Maryland. Specializes in scalable detection architectures, high-performance packet analysis, and resource-efficient ML inference for security applications.

Collective Credentials

6

PhDs

60+

Years Experience

28+

Peer-Reviewed Papers

6

Institutions

12

Published Studies

Frequently Asked Questions