About Me

I am currently a graduate student and research assistant in the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. I am conducting research into the connection between Differential Privacy and Robust Statistics under the advisement of Prof. Somesh Jha. In addition, I work for Prof. Barton Miller on the Middleware Security and Testing project where I conduct vulnerability assessments on large scale grid middleware platforms, develop exploits and work with development teams to roll out vulnerability mitigations.

Prior to grad school I received my BS in Political Science with an undergraduate certificate in Computer Science from UW-Madison

In a past life I worked in High-Threat Protection for the US Department of State in Iraq and Afghanistan, protecting American diplomats and foreign dignitaries as they traveled those war zones. I served as a Protection Specialist, then as Shift-Leader for 10-25 man teams and finally as Deputy Detail Leader for the 300 man Embassy Protection Detail, US Embassy-Kabul.

Prior to my work with the State Department I served as a Non-Comissioned Officer in the United States Army, with multiple deployments; including Iraq, Bosnia and Central America.

You can find my cv here.

Research Interests

  • Cryptography
  • Differential Privacy and Robust Statistics
  • Vulnerability Analysis
  • Secure Programming
  • Cybersecurity

Coursework

Fall 2018 CS 799:Master's Research - Differential Privacy & Robust Statistics Somesh Jha
Fall 2018 CS 540:Artificial Intelligence Jerry Zhu
Summer 2018 CS 524:Optimization Amanda Smith
Summer 2018 CS 699:Secure Programming Barton Miller
Spring 2018 CS 839:Topics in Security Somesh Jha
Spring 2018 CS 787:Advanced Algorithms Eric Bach
Spring 2018 CS 537:Operating Systems Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau
Fall 2017 CS 799:Master's Research - Modern Cryptography Eric Bach
Fall 2017 CS 710:Computational Complexity Dieter van Melkebeek
Fall 2017 Math 567:Number Theory Andrei Caldararu
Fall 2017 CS 475:Combinatorics John Wiltshire-Gordon
Spring 2017 CS 536:Programming Languages & Compilers Thomas Reps
Spring 2017 CS 435:Cryptography Nigel Boston
Fall 2016 CS 577:Algorithms Eric Bach
Fall 2016 CS 506:Software Engineering Tracy Lewis-Williams