Team

Our Team

Von Welch, ResearchSOC principal investigator

Von Welch is associate vice president for information security and executive director for cybersecurity innovation at Indiana University.  He is also executive director of the OmniSOC, and director of the Indiana University Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research. CACR has a unique focus: to improve real-world cybersecurity for organizations with missions that challenge traditional cybersecurity approaches. OmniSOC is the shared cybersecurity operations center for higher education and research. Founded by Northwestern University, Purdue University, Rutgers University, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Indiana University, this pioneering initiative reduces the time from first awareness of a cybersecurity threat anywhere to mitigation everywhere for higher education institutions and research facilities members. Located at IU, OmniSOC also supports the ResearchSOC. Mr. Welch also holds the roles of PI and director for Trusted CI, the NSF Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, and co-PI and chief information security officer for the DHS-funded Software Assurance Marketplace.

Inna Kouper, director of researcher engagement for the ResearchSOC

Inna Kouper is the director of researcher engagement for the ResearchSOC. She is an assistant research scientist at the IU Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering and also serves as a data quality analyst for the Center for Survey Research. Kouper's research focuses on knowledge production and dissemination, with a particular emphasis on emerging technologies and data practices. She is involved in the projects that study communities of data producers and consumers, promote data stewardship and sharing, and develop innovative methods of data collection, preservation, and analysis. Kouper has undergraduate and master's degrees in information systems, a Ph.D. in sociology, and a Ph.D. in information science.

Sameer Patil

Sameer Patil is an assistant professor in the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering at Indiana University Bloomington. He also holds an affiliate appointment as an assistant research professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at New York University (NYU) Tandon School of Engineering. Sameer's research interests cover the fields of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), and social computing, with a focus on privacy and security aspects. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation and Google. Sameer’s work has been published in top-tier conferences and journals, and he holds five US patents related to mobile technologies. He obtained a Ph.D. in computer and information science from the University of California, Irvine, and holds master’s degrees in computer science and engineering and information from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Richard Biever

Richard Biever is Duke University's chief information security officer and a senior director in the Office of Information Technology. The IT Security Office leads IT security initiatives for the university, coordinating campus-wide security efforts through the Security Liaisons Group, which comprises IT security people from departments and schools across Duke.

Ken Goodwin

Ken Goodwin is the director of the networking group at Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, which is a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. This group focuses on providing connectivity to PSC resources, operating the Three Rivers Optical Exchange, and network research.

Michael Corn

Michael Corn is the chief information security officer for the University of California, San Diego. Corn is also co-chair of the EDUCAUSE Higher Education Information Security Council and is active in Internet2. In his career, he has held leadership positions addressing identity and access management, information security, administrative computing, data warehousing, and was one of the earlier privacy officers in higher education (from 2003). He leads the UCSD-based education and outreach component of the ResearchSOC.