Mission

To provide expert guidance that supports and fosters excellence with regard to curriculum, internships, entrepreneurship, graduate outcomes, and other relevant matters.

Wendi Whitmore

Wendi Whitmore serves as senior vice president for Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks. She is a globally recognized cybersecurity leader, with two decades of experience building incident response and threat intelligence teams that have helped clients solve some of the world’s largest breaches. Wendi leads Unit 42, a team of elite incident responders and world-renowned threat researchers. The combined team helps organizations tackle the most complex cyberthreats — from ransomware to state-sponsored espionage. In 2022, Wendi was named an inaugural member of the first-ever Cyber Safety Review Board launched by the United States Department of Homeland Security. She also serves as the chair of the industry advisory board for the Duke University Master of Engineering in Cybersecurity (MECS), and as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Cybersecurity.

She began her career as a Special Agent conducting computer crime investigations with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Wendi joined Palo Alto Networks from IBM, where she led the global X-Force incident response, threat intelligence, incident command, and cyber range teams.

She previously held executive level positions in the professional services organizations of CrowdStrike and Mandiant.

Wendi regularly meets with executive leadership teams and boards to advise them on strengthening their security programs to address their most-pressing threats. She is a frequent speaker at high-profile technical conferences and has taught graduate-level computer science and cybersecurity courses at Carnegie Mellon University and The George Washington University.

Thomas Etheridge

As Chief Global Services Officer, Thomas Etheridge oversees CrowdStrike‘s entire Professional and Managed Services portfolio including – Incident Response and Forensics Investigative Services; Technical Assessment Services; Cyber Advisory Services; Training & Certifications; and CrowdStrike’s’ Managed Extended, Detection and Response (MXDR) solution (Falcon Complete XDR).

Tom is frequently sought-after as a speaker and media spokesperson on topics related to security threats & trends, incident response, managed services, security best practices, and more.

He has over 30 years of management consulting and software services leadership expertise in the cyber security industry.  He has extensive experience building world-class sales and delivery teams; global services channel programs; industry leading customer/partner training programs and in developing strategies for delivering impactful, product adoption-driving solutions for some of the world’s largest companies and government agencies.

 Prior Roles

• VP Global Services – Imperva
• VP Global Security Services – Hewlett Packard (via ArcSight)
• VP Global Services & Support – RSA (via Aveksa)
• VP Global Security Services – Broadcom (via Netegrity)
• KPMG Consulting

Steven Bullitt

As Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer of the Federal Reserve Dallas, overseeing the information security services and business continuity teams, Steven brings over 30 years of experience in assessing and mitigating cyber, logical, and physical security threats. He is a proven leader who has designed, executed, and launched cyber defense and forensic initiatives in both the public and private sector. Prior to joining the Federal Reserve, Steven was the Global Vice President of Threat Intelligence and Incident Response at NTT Security where he built relationships with the United Nations, Internet Governance forum (IGF), World Economic Forum (WEF), Europol, Interpol, Japan Cyber Crime Center (JC3), Australian Directorate, New Zealand CERT, Canadian Center for Child Protection & others.

Steven is a retired U.S. Secret Service agent who led the United States Secret Service’s HQ, Electronic Crimes Special Agent Program, where he was responsible for overseeing agents world-wide, specializing in the investigation of complex network intrusions and computer forensic investigation. Steven has written several nationally published advisories for the United States Secret Service and was instrumental in creating the National Computer Forensic Institute in Hoover, Alabama and cell phone forensics facility in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was a former police officer in Dallas, Texas, working undercover in Narcotics units and was a former explosive ordinance detective.

Steven holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Dallas and a master’s degree in Forensic Science Computer Fraud Investigation from The George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Mark Carney

Mark Carney is Executive Vice President of Offensive Security at Coalfire, responsible for leading the services and operations functions driving innovation, cutting-edge research, and continuous improvement in sales and delivery excellence to ensure world-class customer satisfaction. Mr. Carney has 20+ years of experience within the cybersecurity industry in leading high-growth consulting organizations across the spectrum of cybersecurity services, focusing on operational excellence and designing business-aligned cybersecurity programs.

Prior to joining Coalfire, Carney was Vice President of Global Services at Kudelski Security, where he led the strategy, growth, and operational execution of their cybersecurity services business.  Formerly, Carney was the Chief Information Security Officer at FireMon and Vice President of Strategic Services for FishNet Security (now Optiv).

Mr. Carney is an accomplished, widely published industry thought leader; and he is a frequent speaker at national cybersecurity events and a university guest lecturer.

Mr. Carney holds a Master of Business Administration with an emphasis in management information systems and a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Sandra Cavazos

As head of Product Security and Privacy at Comcast, Sandra’s responsibilities include threat modeling, pen testing, SDL coaching, DevSecOps tooling, cloud security, micro-segmentation, and privacy operations. She is responsible for building security and privacy into all customer-facing and internal products and technology that support Comcast residential and Comcast business customers as well as the enterprise.

Previously at Comcast, she served as Business Information Security Officer. She began her cybersecurity career at Intel leading cybersecurity initiatives for their manufacturing sites. She holds a B.S. from Duke University with a triple major in biomedical engineering, electrical engineering, and German and an M.S. from Stanford University in electrical engineering.

Belisario Contreras

Belisario Contreras is a recognized and thoughtful contributor to information technology and cybersecurity. Belisario’s work has involved a careful balance between understanding international policymaking and its practical applications. He has approached his collaborations by providing critical thinking and expertise to high-level government officials, executives in the private sector, and civil society representatives to foster synergies that have incrementally advanced cybersecurity practices globally.

Bill M. Evans, Jr.

Billy Evans is the Chief Operating Officer at Kivu Consulting, Inc. He has more than 25 years of experience managing, overseeing, and conducting complex incident response actions such as digital forensics, counterintelligence, and criminal investigations/operations from cradle to crave, Billy has directed, managed, and remediated some of the most complex data breaches in the Air Force, Department of Defense, and private sector. All of which he has provided expert advice to legal teams on issues resulting from those matters. Billy is also a retired Special Agent (Federal Agent) with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

Candice Frost

Colonel (Ret) Candice Frost spent 25 years in intelligence and cyber operations working at the CIA, NSA, and US Army. An adjunct professor at Georgetown University, instructing cybersecurity, strategy, and policy; she also sits on the Cybersecurity Program Industry Advisory Board at Duke’s Master of Engineering. She was named one of the top government executive leaders to watch in 2023 and received both the Billington Inaugural Cyber Workforce Award and the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology Impact Award in 2022.

Carl M. Ghattas

Carl M. Ghattas is currently a Senior Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton where he leads the firm’s law enforcement portfolio. He provides clients with expertise and insights regarding risk management, performance improvement, cybersecurity, data analytics strategic planning and innovation support.

From 2018 until 2020, Carl was a Managing Director at Ernst & Young where he led the U.S. Government and Public Sector Cyber practice. The Cyber practice focused on establishing a robust cyber security program for Federal, State and Local clients to address the evolving threat landscape while helping those clients navigate the complex regulatory environment.

From 1997 to 2018, Carl served in the FBI. Over the course of his 21 year FBI career, the majority of Carl’s focus had been on investigating counterterrorism cases in the United States and around the world. Carl deployed overseas to investigate several major attacks against the United States, including the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya; the 2000 attack against the U.S.S. Cole in Aden Yemen; and the murder of several Americans in Greece by the Greek terrorist group 17 November.

In February 2017, Carl was appointed as the Executive Assistant Director of the National Security Branch of the FBI. As the Executive Assistant Director of the National Security Branch, Carl was the fourth highest ranking official in the FBI and led the FBI’s operations and intelligence efforts involving all national security matters, ranging from terrorism to espionage to weapons of mass destruction.

Carl retired from the FBI in July 2018.

Prior to joining the FBI, Carl was a prosecutor in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida from 1993 to 1997.
Carl has received numerous awards to include the Presidential Rank Award for Distinguished Service, the Attorney General’s Award for Distinguished Service and the Exceptional Achievement Medal from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Carl earned a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University and a Juris Doctor from Washington University.

Robert Lee

Robert is a recognized authority in the industrial cybersecurity community. He is CEO and co-founder of Dragos, a global technology leader in cybersecurity for industrial controls systems (ICS)/operational technology (OT) environments. In addition, Robert serves on the Department of Energy’s Electricity Advisory Committee as the Vice Chair of the Department of Energy’s Grid Resilience for National Security Subcommittee and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s subcommittees on Cyber Resilience for the Oil & Gas and Electricity communities. Robert is routinely sought after for advice and input on cybersecurity for industrial infrastructure and is regularly asked to brief national leaders. He testified to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce–Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, and to the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, to advise on policy issues related to critical infrastructure cyber threats. He has also presented at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2023 Cybersecurity Conference: Duke | Georgetown | George Mason | FBI AIA in Davos, and industry-leading conferences such as RSA, SANS, BlackHat, and DefCon on the topic of industrial cybersecurity and threats. He serves on the board of the National Cryptologic Foundation. Robert began his pioneering work in ICS/OT cybersecurity as a U.S. Air Force Cyber Warfare Operations Officer tasked to the National Security Agency, where he built a first-of-its-kind mission identifying and analyzing national threats to industrial infrastructure. He went on to build the industrial community’s first dedicated monitoring and incident response class at the SANS Institute (ICS515) and the industry-recognized cyber threat intelligence course (FOR578). SC Media named Robert the Security Executive of the Year for 2022. A business leader but also a technical practitioner, he helped lead the investigation into the 2015 attack on Ukraine’s power grid, the first time an electric system was taken down due to a cyberattack. With his team at Dragos he has been involved in the most significant cyberattacks on industrial infrastructure, including the investigation and analysis of the 2016 attack on Ukraine’s electric system, the 2017 TRISIS attack on a Saudi Arabian petrochemical facility in the first attempt to try to kill people through malicious software, and the 2021 Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. In 2022, his team at Dragos uncovered PIPEDREAM, a highly flexible framework to attack industrial infrastructure globally. Robert’s work has been featured in the book Sandworm and 60 Minutes.

Bryan Palma

Mr. Bryan Palma is the Chief Executive Officer of Trellix and serves on its board of directors. Before being named CEO in October 2021, he led FireEye’s sale to Symphony Technology Group and subsequently drove the integration of McAfee Enterprise and FireEye. Bryan has quickly transformed Trellix into a global cybersecurity leader by accelerating product innovation, improving customer experience, and delivering operational agility. Prior to joining Trellix, Bryan guided some of the world’s leading organizations through pivotal technology and business transformations, including Cisco, Boeing, EDS, PepsiCo, and the US Secret Service. Bryan earned a master’s of business administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, a master’s of education from the University of Maryland, and a bachelor of arts from the University of Richmond. He currently serves on President Biden’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee, the CloudBees board of directors, and the Duke Master of Engineering in Cybersecurity Industry Advisory Board.

Tenika Versey Walker

Tenika V. Walker is a distinguished marketing leader with over 15 years of expertise in the field of AI and technology marketing. Tenika is the Global Head of Sustainable Futures for Inception at NVIDIA, where she spearheads marketing initiatives in collaboration with AI-accelerated startups while nurturing partnerships with experts within the NVIDIA community. During her tenure at NVIDIA, she led the Black NVIDIAN Network (BNN) and served as an active mentor for organizations including the Stanford Society of Black Scientist and Engineers (SBSE) and Black in Robotics. Her passion for leveraging AI for the greater good shines through her efforts in creating STEM curricula and pioneering robotics initiatives that bring about positive change in underserved communities. Tenika’s versatile skill set has led to her successful management of global product launches and digital campaigns for renowned brands such as Microsoft and Amazon.