Team and Scholars

Dr. Alan T. Sherman (sherman@umbc.edu) is a professor of computer science at UMBC in the CSEE Department, associate director of UMBC’s Cybersecurity Institute, and director of the Cyber Defense Lab.  His main research interest is high-integrity voting systems. He has carried out research in election systems, protocol analysis, algorithm design, cryptanalysis, theoretical foundations for cryptography, applications of cryptography, cloud forensics, and cybersecurity education. Dr. Sherman is also a private consultant performing security analyses and serving as an expert witness.  Sherman earned the PhD degree in computer science at MIT in 1987 studying under Ronald L. Rivest.  His research accomplishments include contributions to the Scantegrity and VoteXX election systems and development and validation of the Cybersecurity Concept Inventory (CCI) and Cybersecurity Curriculum Assessment (CCA). This work has been presented at USENIX Security 2010 and E-VOTE-ID 2025, and won best research paper at SIGSCE 2023. Sherman received approximately $15 million in funding from NSF, NSA, and IBM. https://www.csee.umbc.edu/people/faculty/alan-t-sherman/

Dr. Roberto Yus (ryus@umbc.edu) is an assistant professor of computer science at UMBC in the CSEE Department and director of the DAMS lab. His main research interests are in the fields of data management, AI, privacy, and IoT. In the past, Dr. Yus also worked in agent systems, location-dependent queries, context-awareness, and multimedia and has interest in those. Yus is also interested in the development and deployment of systems and tools based on his research in the real world. Dr. Yus earned the PhD degree in computer science at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) and was a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Computer Science department at the University of California, Irvine before joining UMBC. Yus received approximately $1 million in funding from NSF. https://robertoyus.com/

Dr. Richard Forno is a teaching professor in the UMBC Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, where he directs the UMBC Graduate Cybersecurity Program, serves as the Associate Director of UMBC’s Cybersecurity Institute, and is an Affiliate Scholar at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society (CIS). Prior to academia, his twenty-year career in operational cybersecurity includes helping build a formal cybersecurity program for the US House of Representatives, serving as the first Chief Security Officer for Network Solutions (then, the global center of the internet DNS system), and other assorted roles with the government, military/defense entities, and Fortune 500 companies. Richard has a strong interest in the influence of technology upon national security, individuals, and global society.

Krishna completed his Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at UMBC in May 2025. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Cybersecurity at UMBC with the help of the CyberCorps SFS program. From a young age, he has been fascinated by technology, often taking things apart, building from scraps, and experimenting with how systems work. This curiosity led him to study computer science and, more recently, to cybersecurity. His goal is to continue learning, growing, and making a meaningful impact in the technology industry. He aims to make the world a better place through the combination of technology and kindness.

Keith is a first-year M.S. Computer Science student and SFS scholar at UMBC, building on a B.S. from the same institution. Their past research developed multi-stage defenses against prompt injection attacks on language models, combining machine learning classifiers with AI-based adversarial evaluation. This upcoming summer, they will conduct AI security research at Los Alamos National Laboratory with a previous alum of the SFS program. Keith aims to apply these skills to protect future government AI infrastructure.

Cary is a senior Computer Engineering student expected to graduate Spring 2027. He plays on the UMBC Men’s Ultimate Frisbee Team. He enjoys tinkering with his 3D printer to make custom parts around my house. His career goals career goals are to work in a role encompassing RF systems and securing the hardware inside of them. A fun fact about Cary is that he has been playing guitar for just under 14 years.