A cybersecurity researcher with more than 25 years of industry and government experience – including at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) – has joined the Institute for Cybersecurity and Resilient Infrastructure Studies (ICARIS), a collaboration between Georgia Tech and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL).

To be based at the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), Jeremy Epstein will serve as co-director of ICARIS, collaborating with PNNL co-director Danny Herrera to identify and develop ways to confront threats against the nation’s critical infrastructure. He will also serve as an adjunct professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, which is partnering with GTRI.

ICARIS was formed to serve as the leading national resource to deliver the technologies, testbeds, and talent necessary to serve the nation’s critical infrastructure.

“Anyone using a mobile phone or laptop computer, watching television, driving a modern vehicle, traveling on a highway controlled by traffic signals – or using electricity for most any purpose – is subject to cybersecurity and privacy issues,” said Epstein. “Everything is now computer-controlled, and the security opportunities are there for deliberate adversaries at the nation-state level or malicious actors. We have to look at the big picture and not simply solve challenges one at a time.”

Epstein has extensive experience with cybersecurity and privacy issues. He served as Assistant Director for Technologies and Privacy in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy while on loan from the National Science Foundation (NSF). For more than a dozen years at the NSF, he led the agency’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, the NSF’s flagship cybersecurity and research initiative. The $80-million-per-year SaTC program funded more than a thousand applicant grants at a time across all areas of cybersecurity. 

Between stints at the NSF, he spent a year at DARPA managing part of that agency’s security research program, and worked in the field as an Embassy Science Fellow at the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Before joining NSF, Epstein worked in industry, as senior computer scientist for SRI International, and as senior director at Software AG USA, Inc., formerly webMethods. He holds master’s and bachelor’s degrees in computer science from Purdue University and the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, and has completed Ph.D. coursework in information technology (specializing in computer security) at George Mason University.

Through ICARIS, he looks forward to collaborating with PNNL, GTRI and Georgia Tech researchers to apply cybersecurity research to address the security needs of the nation’s critical infrastructure community. “Our security capabilities are rapidly advancing, but so are those of our adversaries,” he added. “There’s no end in sight to the opportunities we have to do new and interesting things to make our systems, especially our critical infrastructure, more secure and protected from privacy threats.”

Alexa Harter, director of GTRI’s Cybersecurity, Information Protection, and Hardware Evaluation Research (CIPHER) Laboratory, welcomed Epstein to GTRI, Georgia Tech’s applied research institute – which has more than 3,000 faculty and staff conducting more than $900 million in research each year.

“Our nation’s critical infrastructure – the electrical grid, water systems, the transportation network, and many other vital components – face growing threats from malicious actors of all kinds,” Harter said. “ICARIS was created to deliver the technologies, test beds, and talent to help protect that infrastructure. Jeremy Epstein has extensive expertise and experience related to cybersecurity and we welcome him to GTRI to help us lead collaborative efforts to secure these critical systems.”

Michael Bailey, chair of Georgia Tech’s School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, said Epstein’s deep experience will help him translate research into the kind of impact ICARIS was created to provide.

“At the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy, our mission is to create security for everyone and everything, every day,” Bailey said. “Jeremy’s career reflects this mission—demonstrating a sustained commitment to applying research in service of societal needs. His deep experience across government, industry, and academia makes him uniquely positioned to help ICARIS deliver on its vision—translating research into impact and advancing the security of our nation’s critical infrastructure.”

Deb Gracio, Associate Laboratory Director, National Security, at PNNL, said the lab looks forward to working with Epstein and GTRI on this critical cybersecurity initiative.

"PNNL extends a warm welcome to Jeremy Epstein as he joins ICARIS,” she said. “We are enthusiastic about this partnership, which underscores our commitment to advancing cybersecurity research for our nation's critical infrastructure. We look forward to collaborating with Jeremy and the GTRI research team on this pivotal initiative."

ICARIS combines PNNL’s strengths in advanced computing and data science, grid controls, secure architectures, and critical infrastructure security with Georgia Tech’s strengths in cybersecurity for embedded systems, distributed energy systems, and workforce development. 

ICARIS goals include:

•            Performing translational R&D that moves innovative concepts towards implementation into operational environments;

•            Developing the future critical infrastructure workforce; and

•            Providing advice and solutions to communities, states, federal agencies, and businesses.