The ME-EM Graduate Seminar speaker on Thursday, April 9 at 4:00 in 103 EERC will be Dr. Margot Hutchins from Sandia National Laboratory.
The title of her presentation will be ‘Building the Basis for Cybersecurity and Cyber Resilience in Critical Infrastructure’.
Increasing connectivity, use of digital computation, and off-site data storage provide potential for dramatic improvements in the effectiveness of many systems (e.g., energy, manufacturing, financial services, transportation). However, there are also risks associated with this increased connectivity as well as the volume and pervasiveness of data that are generated. The inherent trust among components of digital information and communications infrastructure provides ample opportunity for those with ill intent to do harm. Organizations have experienced cyber attacks that exfiltrate confidential and/or proprietary data, alter information to cause an unexpected or unwanted effect, and destroy capital assets. Given this complex and dynamic landscape, mitigating risk is an important strategy, but it may be necessary to ensure that critical infrastructure is resilient, that is, able to efficiently reduce both the magnitude and duration of the deviation for targeted system performance levels. Metrics and tools are needed to incorporate these considerations into existing risk management processes and to evaluate possible mitigation measures. This seminar will focus on two efforts to identify cybersecurity issues and the characteristics of cyber resilience. We will examine a framework that considers the data flows within a manufacturing enterprise and throughout its supply chain, which provides several mechanisms for identifying generic and manufacturing-specific cyber vulnerabilities. We will also consider how several existing modeling and simulation capabilities could be integrated to address resilience in the electric grid.
Dr. Margot J. Hutchins is a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. She currently conducts systems analysis in support of U.S. national security objectives, including cyber resilience of critical infrastructure and international engagement on the implementation of nuclear detection architectures. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics at Michigan Technological University, where she focused on supporting the inclusion of the social dimension of sustainability in business, manufacturing, and design decision making by developing relevant indicators and techniques. She was a postdoctoral scholar and later a research engineer in the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley. There, Dr. Hutchins had the opportunity to work with industrial, regulatory, and other stakeholders on a variety of projects, including establishment of a benchmarking methodology to support California’s cap-and-trade program and development of key sustainability performance indicators for a large retailer’s suppliers.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000
Dr. Margot J. Hutchins is a Senior Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. She currently conducts systems analysis in support of U.S. national security objectives, including cyber resilience of critical infrastructure and international engagement on the implementation of nuclear detection architectures. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics at Michigan Technological University, where she focused on supporting the inclusion of the social dimension of sustainability in business, manufacturing, and design decision making by developing relevant indicators and techniques. She was a postdoctoral scholar and later a research engineer in the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Sustainability at the University of California, Berkeley. There, Dr. Hutchins had the opportunity to work with industrial, regulatory, and other stakeholders on a variety of projects, including establishment of a benchmarking methodology to support California’s cap-and-trade program and development of key sustainability performance indicators for a large retailer’s suppliers.
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.