Themis Papageorge, Information Assurance Program Director and Associate Clinical Professor
For ten years before he joined the College of Computer and Information Science, Themis Papageorge was vice president of services at Guardium a market leader in database security, auditing, and monitoring, and at Courion, a leader in identity access management, authentication, and security. He has a total of twenty-five years of corporate experience in technology, planning, and process and system redesign, including twelve years at the Digital Equipment Corporation. He received his PhD in risk management and engineering economics from the MIT Sloan School of Management, an MS in naval architecture and marine engineering from MIT, and a BS in naval architecture and marine engineering from National Technical University of Athens, Greece.
Kevin Amorin
The Director of Technology at Nexage where he is responsible for high performance, high volume infrastructure. He has more than twelve years of IT industry experience including organizations such as Microsoft, Motorola, and seven years as the network security manager at Harvard Kennedy School. Kevin Amorin received his MS degree in computer science from Northeastern University’s College of Computer and Information Science. Since 2008, Kevin has been the coach/adviser to the Northeastern Cyber Defense team. The team competes in the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, which is a three-day annual event designed to help students sharpen their skills and boost their knowledge about administering and protecting a large corporate network. The NU team won the Northeast region twice, and in 2010 won the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition title beating out over 80 universities.
Derek Brodeur
An IA professional. Derek received his MS degree in Information Assurance from Northeastern University’s College of Computer and Information Science in 2010. He is currently an information systems engineer at The MITRE Corporation and provides network security and systems engineering support to the US Air Force.
Bryce Cunningham
The Manager of Information Technology Security for the City of Boston. Bryce Cunningham has more than two decades of experience in IT as a software engineer, systems analyst, and information security professional in both the private sector and government. Bryce in his current position as Manager of IT Security for the City of Boston is responsible for defining the City’s strategic direction and tactical capabilities in Security, managing a team with operational security responsibilities, and representing the City in Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Regional Catastrophic Planning Team, a regional cyber defense coordination effort. Bryce graduated from Northeastern’s Master of Science in Information Assurance program in 2010 and also holds a CISSP certification.
Kyle Courtney
An attorney presently working at Harvard Law School as the Head of External Resource Sharing and Faculty Research. He currently maintains a dual appointment at Northeastern University teaching for the School of Law and also teaching for the interdisciplinary Information Assurance program at the College of Computer and Information Science. He has continued to design and teach seminars in legal research methods for the Columbia Law’s Human Rights Institute. Courtney also lectures on intellectual property and plagiarism for the graduate Communication Management Program at Emerson College. He graduated with distinction from Suffolk University School of Law, where he was accepted into the school’s specialized Intellectual Property program. He received his MLS from Simmons College in Boston. He is a published author and writes a monthly column on research methods for Massachusetts Lawyer’s Weekly.
Michael R. Higgins
Mike Higgins is a veteran security executive with more than 20 years of experience working in the Government and private industry. Today Mike serves as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for NBCUniversal leading the company’s information security programs. Previously Mike held executive security positions at The New York Times and LexisNexis. For more than a decade prior Mike was an executive security consultant to Fortune 500 companies including Time Warner, Citigroup, Sun Microsystems, Merrill Lynch, JPMorganChase, and British Petroleum. For the last 10+ years Mike has been a visiting lecturer at the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia and is a former adjunct professor in the Information Assurance Program at The George Washington University. Mike received his Bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University and his Masters’ from the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California.
Frederick J. Howell, Jr., MBA, CISSP
A senior information security assurance specialist with the Bose Corporation. He is an experienced information security consultant for Fortune 500 companies and has also worked for the office of the attorney generals in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He is currently completing his PhD in information assurance at the University of Fairfax in Virginia.
David LaPorte
David graduated from Northeastern’s Master of Science in Information Assurance program in 2010. As Senior Network Engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he is well-versed in the technical challenges in securing network and systems infrastructure. David is a teaching fellow at the Harvard University Extension School and holds various industry certifications, including a CISSP.
Richard Moore, CISSP, CISM, GPEN
Received a master’s degree in Information Assurance from Norwich University in 2005. He is currently the Vice President- Senior Audit Manager, Security & Risk for RBS Americas. Prior to joining RBS Americas he was an information security consultant for Fortune 500 companies and federal government agencies. His professional credentials include Certified Industry Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Information Security Manager (CISM), and Global Information Assurance Certification Penetration Tester (GPEN). He serves on several professional boards and is a contributing author for the fifth version of the Computer Security Handbook.
David Reis
David Reis serves as the Vice President of IT Governance, PMO and Security and is the Chief Information Security Officer at Lahey Health in Burlington Massachusetts. He earned a Bachelors degree in Organizational Management from Eastern University, a Master of Business Administration from Rosemont College and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from Nova Southeastern University. David’s research interests focus on the intersection of IT Project Management and information security implementations. He holds a variety of IT security certifications including: CGEIT, CISSP, CRISC, and Certified ScrumMaster. He is an active member in a number of associations including the American Legion, ISACA, (ISC)2 and InfraGard. He is a frequent speaker on information security related topics and in the past has taught undergraduate and graduate courses at Rosemont College, Drexel University, Merrimack College, and Brandeis University.
Joe J. Rushanan
Principal Mathematician in the Signal Processing Department of The MITRE Corporation. Joe has led numerous initiatives for over 20 years in system security in a variety of national defense programs and in addition has helped shape the modernized Global Positioning System (GPS). He has held adjunct faculty positions at Northeastern University and Bentley College. Dr. Rushanan received a B.S. and M.S. in Mathematics from The Ohio State University and a Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology also in Mathematics.
Dennis Treece
The director of corporate security for Massport and responsible for all aspects of security at Logan International Airport. He has over thirty years of security experience and has worked with intelligence, security, and law enforcement agencies at all levels.
Leonard Wisniewski
Currently Director of Technology Services for the Institute of Quantitative Social Sciences at Harvard University. Len has held various engineering and management roles in High Performance Computing at Sun Microsystems, Thinking Machines (acquired by Sun), and Acopia Networks (acquired by F5 Networks). He received a PhD in computer science from Dartmouth College and has taught at Endicott College, Daniel Webster College, and Dartmouth College.
