2024 conference agenda

Conference opens, continental breakfast and registration.

Keynote address: Creating Small Business On-Ramps to NIST Cybersecurity Guidance   

Cybersecurity isn't something you solve: it’s something you manage. And the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is committed to helping small businesses manage their cybersecurity risks by helping them make informed cybersecurity risk decisions. This work will help to promote U.S. industrial innovation, resilience and competitiveness.
For over 50 years, NIST has conducted cybersecurity research and developed cybersecurity guidance. In 2024, NIST announced the creation of the NIST Small Business Cybersecurity Program, with two goals: increasing the small business community’s awareness of NIST’s work; and highlighting opportunities for the small business community to better engage with NIST.
Dan Eliot, NIST lead for small business engagement, will discuss NIST’s role in supporting U.S. innovation and competitiveness. He also will provide an overview of NIST’s current and planned small business resources, and will highlight opportunities to get involved with NIST’s small business programming.   

Dan Eliot biography

Daniel Eliot is the lead for small business engagement within the NIST Applied Cybersecurity Division. In this role, he works across NIST's cybersecurity and privacy program to advise and support development of cybersecurity resources, communication materials and collateral tailored for use by small businesses. He also regularly works directly with the small business community and their advocates through external outreach and engagement. Immediately prior to joining NIST, Eliot worked within MITRE Corporation’s Center for Securing the Homeland, serving as the chief communications strategist at the NIST National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. In prior roles he served as the director of small business education for the National Cybersecurity Alliance and manager of technology business development at the Delaware Small Business Development Center, part of the University of Delaware’s Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships. There, Eliot created one of the country’s first statewide small business cybersecurity programs and he received a letter of commendation from Delaware Gov. John Carney’s Cybersecurity Advisory Council for his cybersecurity outreach efforts to the region’s small business community.  

University of Nevada, Reno students will present this session. 

Panel discussion: cybersecurity landscape for small businesses and the need for cybersecurity from interdisciplinary perspectives

Panelists:

Paromita Pain is an associate professor of global media in the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno and is an affiliated faculty member with the Cybersecurity Center. She is also an affiliate faculty member at the University’s Ozmen Institute for Global Studies. Her research focuses on alternate media and global journalism practices from feminist perspectives. Before receiving her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin, she was a journalist with The Hindu Newspaper, India’s most respected broadsheet. She also has written for the Guardian and Al Jazeera. Interested in epistemological concerns raised by emerging forms of media that are hybrids between old and new forms, between citizen and professional news practices, she has published extensively on the intersection of gender, technology and social media besides looking into areas of online commenting and uncivil behavior and its impact on journalistic practices. 

Sarah Grubbs is a managing director for TrailRunner International, a strategic communications firm, and head of its Nashville office. She advises clients on corporate positioning; international strategy and expansion (Asia-Pacific and Latin American regions); crisis preparedness and response; reputation and change management; and high-stakes situations such as IPOs, mergers and acquisitions transactions; regulatory issues; and executive leadership changes. Grubbs works with a wide range of clients, including large international conglomerates, Fortune 500 companies, newly public companies and start-ups.
Before joining TrailRunner, Grubbs worked at global communications firm Burson Cohn & Wolfe (formerly Burson-Marsteller). While there, she developed and executed award-winning communications strategies for Fortune 500 companies and NGOs facing issues and crises.
Grubbs began her career in journalism, working as a news writer for NBC San Diego. Before that, she was a member of the NBC San Diego investigative reporting team. 

Matthew J. Myers is a cryptologic engagement officer (CEO) at U.S. Strategic Command in Bellevue, Nebraska and the National Security Agency (NSA) academic liaison to the University of Nevada, Reno. Myers joined the NSA in 2015 and since 2022 has worked in intelligence analysis at a field site in Bellevue, Nebraska. Additionally, he is a master sergeant (retired) out of the Nebraska Air National Guard. 
A native of Warrensburg, Missouri and raised near Kansas City, Myers joined the U.S. Navy in 2003, graduating from the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, in 2004. Myers served in various capacities at Lackland Air Force Base and overseas until leaving active duty in 2012. He worked at the Camber Corporation at Fort Meade, Maryland, as an intelligence analyst before joining the NSA in 2015.

Jake Wahrer is the vice president of infrastructure and technology at Northern Nevada HOPES, a nonprofit community health center. In his 15 years of working in healthcare IT, he has designed and developed telehealth integration between private healthcare facilities and the U.S. Army Medical Command (MEDCOM) network. He also has worked on integrating generative AI within clinical encounters. Wahrer is a Cisco Certified Network Administrator (CCNA) and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP).

Amber Hankins is a graduate student pursuing a master’s degree in computer science and engineering at the University of Nevada, Reno, with a focus on cybersecurity. Expected to complete her degree in May 2025, her research interests include malware detection and network security. Hankins is working to establish a student-led nonprofit cybersecurity clinic, giving students an opportunity to provide free vulnerability assessment services to small businesses and healthcare firms to enhance their cybersecurity posture. Serving as a board member of the Nevada Cyber Club and team captain of the University’s Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition team, she is dedicated to fostering a community of future cybersecurity professionals.

Enjoy lunch and stop by the industry table booths.

Keynote address: AI in the Trenches: Leveling Up Cyber Talent and Defending our Critical Infrastructure 

As AI continues to revolutionize cybersecurity, it’s no longer just a tool—it’s a force multiplier. This session, led by Aaron Rose of Check Point Software Technologies, explores how leveraging AI can elevate the skills of cybersecurity practitioners at all levels, from entry-level analysts to seasoned experts, to create a more agile and effective workforce capable of responding to sophisticated threats. We’ll also dive into the responsible use of generative AI, addressing the critical need to protect sensitive data like personally identifiable information (PII) and organizational assets. Attendees will gain insights into how AI can be used to enhance human talent and shore up defenses, as well as how to navigate the ethical challenges that come with integrating these powerful tools into everyday cybersecurity operations. 

Aaron Rose biography

Aaron Rose is a cybersecurity evangelist, security architect manager and a member of the Office of the Chief Technology Officer at Check Point Software Technologies. As a subject matter expert in artificial intelligence and application security, Rose has dedicated his career to securing organizations and their resources beyond the traditional network firewall. Passionate about making cybersecurity education accessible to all, Rose actively engages as a guest lecturer, mentors students and assists in the development of cybersecurity courses. An avid international traveler, he spent three months in Tel Aviv, Israel, training with Check Point’s research and development teams at the company’s global headquarters.  

University of Nevada, Reno students will present this session. 

Panel discussion: cybersecurity and higher education – evolving identity and access management (IAM), expanding connectivity and advancing science and engineering research, along with challenges between enterprise and research security approaches and tools 

Panelists:

E. Marie Brierley is the founder and president of Saatvik Advisors and Saatvik Research, organizations that help companies transition to the new internet and IPv6, the latest version of the Internet Protocol (IP). She holds an MBA from Santa Clara University, ’19. She is a former board director for Silicon Valley’s largest provider of mental health services, Momentum for Health. She is a former American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) fellow and a speaker/writer on the depletion of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses and the transition to the new IP addressing protocol, IPv6, and the impact to cybersecurity. She is the recipient of two ARIN community grants and a contributor to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), ARIN and Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC). She is Nevada’s first candidate for ARIN’s advisory council. She has held both applications and infrastructure positions at Cisco, Qualcomm and Gigamon.  

Derek Eiler serves as principal systems engineer for the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE). His current focus is on federated identity and access management architecture, including NSHE's expansion of the eduroam secure wireless roaming service throughout Nevada. Eiler serves on several Internet2/InCommon advisory committees and working groups with the goal of advancing Nevada's K-20 identity and access management (IAM) and connectivity needs while contributing to the national education community. He’s passionate about building secure and resilient systems that benefit people and firmly believes that security and innovation aren’t mutually exclusive. 

Lt. Col. Matt Johnson is the director of Information Management for the Nevada Army National Guard (NVARNG), responsible for operating, maintaining and defending Nevada’s portion of the Department of Defense Information Network (DODIN), and the Nevada Army National Guard’s Defensive Cyber Operations Element (DCOE). Johnson has served 27 years in the U.S. Army, with 23 in the Nevada National Guard. After a four-year enlistment on active duty as a combat engineer, he joined the NVARNG as a communications systems support specialist in the 422^nd Expeditionary Signal Battalion. Over the next 20 years, he held positions in recruiting, the 421st Regional Training Institute and the state Joint Force Headquarters (JFHQ), but much of his time was spent in the 422^nd, where he held positions from operator to battalion executive officer. Johnson holds a B.S in electrical engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno; an M.A. in IT Management from Webster University; and is a graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff course and Information Systems Engineer course. He holds several military certifications (Sapper, Air Assault) as well as civilian certifications (CCNA, SEC+, NET+, CEH, CISSP). He and his wife, Janenne, have three sons, ages 28 to 15. Johnson grew up in Reno, and has always considered it home. 

Michael Kennedy is the information security officer for the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health, where he oversees the division's efforts to follow regulatory compliance and industry best practices. With over 15 years of information technology experience in public and private organizations, Kennedy has been exposed to IT needs in a wide range of circumstances. He holds a degree in computer science and is a board member of the Nevada chapter of the government IT management group GMIS.

Scotty Strachan serves as principal research engineer for the Nevada System of Higher Education (NSHE). In this capacity, Strachan develops strategy, technical solutions and partnerships for effective, sustainable and performant research-facing technology environment. Strachan currently is the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on over $31 million in grant-funded projects across the Nevada higher-ed ecosystem. He works closely with partners in the NevadaNet statewide high-speed optical network, the Nevada Seismological Laboratory’s Nevada Science Network and other groups to develop regional “team science” support capabilities from a data networking perspective. 
Strachan is also a research affiliate with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and he sits on boards and advisory panels for Internet2, The Quilt R&E Network Consortium and EPSCoR programs for other states. 

It is widely understood that the National Institute of Standards (NIST) Post Quantum Cryptography (PQC) methods are not proven to be unbreakable. Thus, by the standards of the U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Administration (CISA), they are not secure by design and therefore use global internet users as “crash test dummies” (CISA’s terminology). If the standards fail in practice, there is no backup, risking “cybersecurity Armageddon” (IBM’s characterization). This presentation presents promising data encryption methods with deterministic chaos foundations that are provably secure by design and offer numerous advantages over existing and proposed NIST standards. These methods are evolutionary and complement and fortify NIST standards within NIST-recommended hybrid encryption solutions. 

W. David Schwaderer biography

W. David Schwaderer is the ShapeShift® Ciphers LLC CEO. He has 14 issued and pending patents. Schwaderer has authored dozens of industry articles and 11 technical books that explain complex technology in approachable ways. He has developed six commercial software programs in several different languages for multiple machine architectures and delivered Usenix™ seminars on erasure coding, a subject he has presented several times at leading Silicon Valley conferences and enterprises. His October 2007 MIT joint Sloan School of Management and Department of Electrical Engineering conference lecture was selected best in conference. Schwaderer is the chair of the Northern Nevada chapter of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the first vice-chair of Northern Nevada Mensa. He has an M.S. in applied mathematics from the California Institute of Technology and an MBA from the University of Southern California. 

The conference will conclude with an industry showcase and student posters and demos, followed by a student awards ceremony.