Our diverse team is comprised of the most respected and qualified individuals from across a multitude of recognized universities, national laboratories, and industry leaders. We are focused to research, engage, educate, and institute practical innovations for the betterment of nation’s current cybersecurity and manufacturing model. Combining their multitude of expertise and experience, our team proudly works together to provide solutions for the manufacturing workforce and against cybersecurity threats from foreign entities, in order to ensure the safety for the workforce and the future of manufacturing automation.
Dr. Howard Grimes is a noted research scientist and author with 25 years of success in directing complex university and National Laboratory research programs and entrepreneurial start-up initiatives. Currently, he also serves as the Associate Vice Provost and Vice President for Institutional Initiatives at UTSA. Previously, he was Director for Innovation and Industry Partnerships (3 years) at INL’s Idaho CAES.
Dr. Greg Shannon is an internationally recognized cybersecurity expert with over 30 years of academic, government, and industry experience. For the last decade he was Chief Scientist for the CERT® Division at Carnegie Mellon University’s (CMU’s) Software Engineering Institute. He has served as a member of U.S. Air Force (USAF) Scientific Advisory Board and as an assistant director for Cybersecurity Strategy for the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP). He is currently a member of the governing board for the Women in CyberSecurity Conference (WiCyS.org).
Wayne Austad has worked at Idaho National Laboratory for 28 years with more than 20 years of experience leading impactful national security programs. As CTO for National & Homeland Security he leads the strategy for R&D programs, collaborative partnerships, and the Secure & Resilient Cyber Physical Systems Initiative. Previously as Technical Director of the Cybercore Integration Center, he led the creation of a new research and education campus dedicated to control systems cybersecurity and national partnerships that address targeted cyber threats to U.S. critical infrastructure.
Chief Operation Officer & Chief Information Security Officer
Ken Fowler is a nationally recognized cyber secure scientist and engineer with a unique and impressive background with multiple levels of expertise including intelligence community operations; military intelligence and operations; global and cultural competence; operations management and process improvement. Prior to joining CyManII, Fowler served as the Chief of Special Access Research, Chief at the Intelligence Surveillance Reconnaissance (ISR) Office, and Technical Director for the NSA office in Texas. Most recently, Fowler holds experience as the Director of Engineering Cyber Solutions at Raytheon Technologies, an aerospace and defense company that provides advanced systems and services for commercial, military and government customers worldwide.
Dr. Tom Kurfess has over a 45-year career and international recognition as a leading expert in digital manufacturing, focusing on the design and development of advanced manufacturing systems. Currently, he serves as ORNL’s Chief Manufacturing Officer, with responsibility for the lab’s strategic planning for advanced manufacturing and sits on MxD Board of Directors. He also, holds 35 years of cyber experience with an in-depth knowledge of production operations, manufacturing systems and supply chains, and policy issues related to advanced manufacturing.
Stephen C. Laycock served as the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director of the Intelligence Branch until his retirement in March 2021. Appointed to this position in October 2019, EAD Laycock served as the strategic leader of the FBI Intelligence Program, with centralized authority, responsibility, and oversight for all of the FBI’s intelligence work.
Mr. Laycock entered on duty with the FBI in 1992 as a Physical Science Technician in the Firearms/Toolmarks Unit of the FBI Laboratory Division. He was certified as a Forensic Scientist in 1994 and became a Special Agent in 1995.
Mr. Laycock was assigned to the San Francisco Field Office after new agent training, where he worked counterintelligence and Asian organized crime matters. In 2000, he accepted a position as the FBI liaison to three Department of Energy National Laboratories in the San Francisco area of responsibility: Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Lawrence Berkeley. Mr. Laycock also served on the office’s Evidence Response
Team and SWAT.
Mr. Laycock was promoted to a position in the Counterintelligence Division at FBI Headquarters in 2003, where he worked Chinese and Taiwanese weapons of mass destruction proliferation matters. In 2005, he transferred to the Critical Incident Response Group’s Crisis Management Unit. In 2006, Mr. Laycock accepted a position as Unit Chief in the Counterintelligence Division.
Mr. Laycock returned to the field in February 2008 as a Supervisory Special Agent in the Norfolk Field Office, working cyber national security and counterintelligence matters. He accepted a promotion to Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Richmond Field Office in November 2013, where he oversaw the Branch over National Security, Intelligence, and Administrative matters.
Mr. Laycock was promoted to Section Chief of the Counterintelligence Division’s Eurasian Section in 2015. He accepted a position as Special Agent in Charge of the Washington Field Office’s Counterintelligence Division in 2017. In April 2018, he was appointed Assistant Director of the Directorate of Intelligence.
Since his retirement, Mr. Laycock serves as the Executive Director/National Intelligence Programs at KACE Company. KACE is mission focused professional services and federal government information technology expertise to advance the nations’ safety, security and performance.
Mr. Laycock is a native Virginian and graduated from Virginia Tech in 1991, is married and has two sons, one of which is a freshman at Radford University studying Criminal Justice.. Mr. Laycock earned an Insider Threat Program Manager Certification from the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, completed the Executive Leadership Program at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Homeland Defense and Security, and completed the Office of the Director of National Intelligence Leading the Intelligence Community Executive Leadership program at the University of Michigan.
BrianLuffy is a recognized expert in cybersecurity, with 20 years of combined federal, academic, and private sector experience including 13 years at the National Security Agency. Prior to joining CyManII, Brian was the Vice President of Professional Services for Redacted, Inc. delivering solutions to the underserved SMB market, along with consulting for the Fortune 500 companies across the country.
Paris Stringfellow is a recognized expert in human factors, user-centered design, and risk engineering with 14 years of industry and university experience that includes 4 years working with DOE. Currently, Stringfellow serves as the Associate Director for the Center for Advanced Manufacturing at Clemson University, where she works as a primary interface with industry partners and manages day-to-day operations.
Holding over 10 years of experience in Learning, Organizational and Workforce Development, Ty has worked with UTSA for over 2 years as a Senior Manager for Organizational Development and Change Management. As a retired officer with the US Army, Ty has spent the past 12 years in private industry supporting human resources and corporate change management. Ty holds a Masters in Business Administration and is certified as an Organizational Change Manager and Organizational Development & Executive Coach.
Jacob Sanchez is the Chief Financial Officer for CyManII. He comes to CyManII with financial experience both in industry and higher education. He most recently served as the Senior Financial Planning Analyst for CyManII and within other positions at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Jacob has over ten years at UTSA and going on two years with CyManII.
Research, Development and Engineering
Krystel Castillo
Vice President for Energy Efficiency | The University of Texas at San Antonio
Krystel Castillo
Vice President for Energy Efficiency | The University of Texas at San Antonio
Dr. Kystel Castillo has over 10 years of experience in energy efficiency modeling and system optimization. With that, she also holds seven years of DOE experience. During her career, she was honored as the GreenStar Endowed Associate Professor in Energy, served in the Mechanical Engineering Department and as the Director of Texas Sustainable Energy Research Institute at UTSA. While she served, she managed strategic alliance between UTSA and CPS Energy for research support. She is also the recipient of numerous awards on behalf of the city of San Antonio.
Gabriela Ciocarlie
Vice President for Securing Automation and Secure Manufacturing Architecture | The University of Texas at San Antonio
Gabriela Ciocarlie
Vice President for Securing Automation and Secure Manufacturing Architecture | The University of Texas at San Antonio
Gabriela F. Ciocarlie, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Her expertise is in anomaly detection, distributed alert correlation, network and application level security, cyber physical systems security and distributed system security. Before UTSA, Gabriela was the Chief Product Officer at Elpha Secure and a senior technical manager of SRI’s New York City research hub, which she established in 2016. She was also the principal investigator and co-leader for multiple programs and research projects for industrial control systems.
Paulo Cesar Costa
Vice President for Securing Automation and Supply Chain Security | George Mason University
Paulo Cesar Costa
Vice President for Securing Automation and Supply Chain Security | George Mason University
Dr. Paulo Cesar Costa is an internationally recognized expert from George Mason University in the areas of heterogeneous data fusion and cybersecurity. He has applied his significant experience as a fighter pilot to a career specializing in the fields of electronic warfare and flight safety, which in conjunction with his pioneer research on probabilistic ontologies has led to applications in cyber-physical systems security. He is the current President of ISIF, an IEEE senior member, and member of INCOSE and INFORMS.
Jeff Prevost
Vice President For Secure Cloud Architecture | The University of Texas at San Antonio
Jeff Prevost
Vice President For Secure Cloud Architecture | The University of Texas at San Antonio
Dr. John Jeffery Prevost is a nationally recognized researcher and expert in computer engineering. Currently, Dr. Prevost is an Assistant Professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Previously, he co-founded and served as the Chief Research Officer and the Assistant Director of the Open Cloud Institute.
Prior to his academic appointment, he served many roles as a technical leader in the computer hardware and software industry.
Ananth Grama
Research Collaborator | Purdue University
Ananth Grama
Research Collaborator | Purdue University
Dongyan Xu
Vice President for Securing Automation and Secure Manufacturing Architecture | Purdue University
Dongyan Xu
Vice President for Securing Automation and Secure Manufacturing Architecture | Purdue University
David M. Nicol
Vice President for Securing Automation | University of Illinois
David M. Nicol
Vice President for Securing Automation | University of Illinois
Dr. David Nicol is a nationally recognized professor and cybersecurity research expert. Currently, Dr. Nicol serves as the Endowed Chair of Engineering at the University of Illinois and has conducted research in multiple areas including Modeling and Simulation of Large-Scale Systems, Cyber-security and Cyber-risk assessment, and Networks. He also, serves on multiple boards including the National Renewable Energy Laboratory Cyber-security External Advisory Board and the Sandia National Laboratories Energy and Homeland Security External Advisory Board.
Matthew Luallen
Research Collaborator | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Matthew Luallen
Research Collaborator | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Duminda Wijesekera
Coordinated Vulnerability Awareness Lead | George Mason University
Duminda Wijesekera
Coordinated Vulnerability Awareness Lead | George Mason University
Dr. Duminda Wijesekera is a visiting research scientist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and professor of computer science at George Mason University’s Volgenau School of Engineering. Currently, Dr. Wijesekera leads the Laboratory of Radio and RADAR Engineering (RARE) and is a co-director of the Center for Assured Research (CARE) at Mason. His massive research interests include security and safety of cyber-physical systems, electronic support for medical procedures, and digital forensics research. Previously, he worked as a Senior Systems and Software Engineer at Honeywell’s Military Avionics and Space Systems divisions.
Monika Akbar
Research Collaborator | University of Texas at El Paso
Monika Akbar
Research Collaborator | University of Texas at El Paso
Curtis Taylor
Chief Technical Integration Officer | Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Curtis Taylor
Chief Technical Integration Officer | Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Curtis Taylor is an accomplished cybersecurity research scientist in ORNL’s Physical Systems Group under the National Security Sciences Directorate. Taylor has over nine years of experience in cybersecurity R&D with expertise in networking, network security, and systems security of general computing and embedded devices in collaboration with DOE, DOD, DHS, DOT, and others.