Faculty

Dr. Pablo Rivas serves as the Executive Director for the Central Texas Cyber Range and is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Baylor University. With over a decade of industry experience as a software engineer before transitioning to academia, Dr. Rivas specializes in the intersection of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. His research focuses on developing adversarially robust machine learning models for cyber defense, including the detection of DDoS attacks and testing neural-based block ciphers trained adversarially. An active contributor to the field, he frequently publishes in top machine learning and cybersecurity conferences such as NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, and ICAI. He is a Senior Member of IEEE, ACM, and SIAM, and actively participates in the IEEE Standards Association, contributing to the development of AI ethics standards in the P7000 series. At Baylor University, Dr. Rivas teaches courses in machine learning and deep learning with applications in cybersecurity, natural language processing, and computer vision. He is a deep learning evangelist, machine learning ethicist, and a proponent of democratizing artificial intelligence. His commitment to inclusivity is evident through his advocacy as an ally for women in technology. Previously, Dr. Rivas worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and held academic positions at Marist College in New York, equipping him with a holistic perspective on the challenges and solutions within the cybersecurity industry.

Dr. Erika Leal serves as the Director of Research and Development for the Central Texas Cyber Range and is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Baylor University. Her research specializes in cybersecurity, focusing on hardware-assisted software security analysis, malware analysis, and high-performance computing security. Combining the power of hardware features and machine learning, Dr. Leal studies obfuscated malware to advance cyber defense mechanisms. She earned her Ph.D. in Computer Science with a specialization in Software and Systems Security from Tulane University and the University of Texas at Arlington under the guidance of Dr. Jiang Ming, and holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science with a minor in Business Administration from Texas Wesleyan University. At Baylor University, she teaches courses  in cybersecurity and is actively involved with the Cyber@Baylor club, coaching their competitive teams to nurture the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.

Greg Speegle, PhD is a Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Baylor University. His research background in databases, particularly concurrency control for non-traditional systems, led to work recently in big data analytics, particularly in the optimization of bioinformatics algorithms. Currently, he is working on developing requirements for parallel systems and serial programs to enable automatic generation of parallel programs beyond mapreduce.

Liang Dong, PhD is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the School of Engineering and Computer Science at Baylor University. His unique qualifications include academic specialization in Cyber-Physical System and Security, Sustainable Internet of Things (IoT), and Deep Learning and Data Analysis. IoT allows users to gather data from the physical environment. New information and communication technologies make IoT more scalable and reliable. Dong's recent work focuses on energy-efficient communications and networking, data analysis, and trustworthiness of IoT. Deep neural networks use algorithms, big data, and computing power of digital systems to enable machines to learn quickly, accurately, and on a large scale. Dong's research explores deep-learning methods for applications in mobile communications, network anomaly detection, and information security. He is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the American Physical Society (APS). He has led research projects from government and industry.

Robert J. Marks II is a distinguished professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Baylor University. Marks is the founding director of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural & Artificial Intelligence and the editor-in-chief of BIO-Complexity. He served as the first President of the IEEE Neural Networks Council, now the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society. He is a fellow of the IEEE and of the Optical Society of America. Marks' eponyms include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks time-frequency distribution, the Cheung-Marks theorem in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung approach in multidimensional signal analysis. He has consulted for Microsoft Corporation, DARPA and Boeing Computer Services. His latest book is Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics co-authored with William Dembski and Winston Ewert.

Daniel Pienta, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Business Analytics in the School of Business at Baylor University. Dr. Pienta's research in cybersecurity focuses on such topics as trust, phishing, offensive cybersecurity, and the intersection of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, amongst others. Although diverse, he typically takes a behavioral cybersecurity perspective with elements of design science incorporated into his work in artificial intelligence and machine learning. Dr. Pienta uses multiple methods to understand these problems such as lab experiments, field experiments, surveys, focus groups, case studies, and in-depth interviews. Prior to his career in academics, Dr. Pienta consulted some of the largest financial institutions in the United States on due diligence and cybersecurity.

Jeff Blake has focused his career helping public and private sector organizations build data and security strategy programs. Currently leading a Global team of Solution Engineers at Nozomi Networks, Jeff is also teaching the Cybersecurity Policy and Planning, and Cyber Warfare courses at the Hankamer School of Business. Jeff enjoys bringing practical, real-world experience to the classroom, and giving students the opportunity to learn first-hand about rapidly evolving topics in Cybersecurity. His areas of interest focus on protecting Critical Infrastructure and Industrial Control Systems.

Peter Campbell, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts & Sciences at Baylor University. He conducts research in the areas of national and international security. Specifically, he researches the sources of military innovation and their implications for national security and civil-military relations. He also conducts research on cybersecurity, and especially the relationship between attack and defense in cyberspace and the potential advantages of each. Campbell is currently researching the ways in which offensive and defensive actions in cyberspace affect the restoration, strengthening, and building of traditional and non-traditional alliances. He also researches and teaches on the application of ethics in armed conflict, with a particular focus on the just war tradition and how it applies to unconventional forms of conflict, like insurgency and cyberwar. Campbell also studies the origins of grand strategy and the education of strategists. In addition, he researches the extent of policy engagement among academics and how to bridge the gap between academia and policy makers, especially in national security affairs. Some of the finding of this research are available here: Peter Campbell and Michael Desch, "Ranking Relevance: Which Universities Rise and Which Fall in International Relations," New America Foundation, Nov. 27, 2018, https://www.newamerica.org/international-security/reports/ranking-relevance/. Campbell is the author of Military Realism: The Logic and Limits of Force and Innovation in the U.S. Army (University of Missouri Press, 2019) and "Generals in Cyberspace: Military Insights for Defending Cyberspace" (Orbis: The Journal of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, Spring 2018), among other works.

Richard Jordan, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at Baylor University. His research interests include international politics, grand strategy, crisis decision making, emerging technologies (especially autonomous systems and cyber warfare, and mathematical models of (in)equality. His work uses game theory and historical cases to analyze how leaders bargain before, during, and after conflict.