SFS Hall of Fame

Mr. Samuel Edoho-Eket is a leader, entrepreneur, and a certified cybersecurity, telecommunications, and project management subject matter expert. Born and raised in Nashville Tennessee and a graduate of Hume-Fogg Academic High School (4.0 GPA), he credits his parents (Nina Lovelace and Eddy Edoho-Eket), family, friends, and God for helping him throughout his professional career. He also credits the Tennessee State University Pre-College Engineering programs, founded by Dr. Decatur B. Rogers in the 1990s, for fostering a love of the engineering discipline. His parents purchased his first computer for him in 1987, which he used early on to teach himself the BASIC computer programming language. He has over 23 years of experience supporting both the Department of Defense (DoD) and commercial sectors. He received a Bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in Electrical Engineering (receiving the John Ogden Bigelow Prize in Electrical Engineering) and received a Master’s degree in Information Networking from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU)’s prestigious Information Network institute (INI) funded by the NSF Scholarship for Service (SFS). While at Princeton, Mr. Edoho-Eket worked for Xerox and startup telecommunications firm Vonage where he gained his first expertise in IP telecommunications.

After graduating from CMU, he established a successful track record as a civilian Technical Director within the DoD for nearly seven years—quickly receiving multiple promotions while supporting national and international communications interoperability efforts. He went on to consult as a Systems Engineer for several years before establishing and founding PrismSix Technologies in 2012. His many significant career accomplishments include leading the establishment of some of the largest DoD Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) infrastructure environments over the last two decades. This infrastructure today enabled the DoD to successfully pivot towards newer technologies while phasing out higher priced legacy infrastructure. In addition to leading system deployment activities, his firm also conducts Cybersecurity training and audits for commercial organizations.  During the COVID-19 pandemic, he helped lead the establishment of a secure Cloud-based voice gateway for the DoD alongside critical capacity increases required to handle Voice and Video over IP (VVoIP) traffic supporting remote workers. Mr. Edoho-Eket maintained 6 professional IT certifications throughout his career including the Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), which he maintained for nearly 20 years, and the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.

Mr. Edoho-Eket and his firm give back regularly to schools and youth programs, including Meigs Magnet Middle School in Nashville in support of the school computer studies program and computer lab. Since 1994, Mr. Joel Orleck and subsequent Meigs computer science teachers named the top computer studies award the “Sammy” award, and the award is annually presented to the top computer students. He will return to the school in 2024 to present the award in person. He has mentored and visited with students to talk about career growth and professional development. He also talks to students about music, enjoys playing and listening to jazz, and currently plays four instruments including the saxophone, trumpet, trombone. He enjoys spending time with his loving wife and children in Maryland.

Devon Rollins serves as the Vice President of Cyber Engineering and Machine Learning at Capital One. Operating at petabyte scale, Devon manages teams of software developers, machine learning engineers, and data scientists to build and mature security monitoring platforms that power the investigative capabilities of cyber defenders. As a technology executive with over a decade of experience in security operations, cyber intelligence, and risk management, his deep appreciation for engineering stems from previous roles where he was often dependent on these very same technologies to prevent, detect, and respond to cyber attacks. In 2020, Devon received Capital One’s coveted Circle of Excellence Award for stellar incident response. Before Capital One, Devon worked at MITRE Corporation conducting complex cybercrime investigations to advance criminal cases for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). He led teams at the National Cyber Joint Investigative Task Force (NCIJTF) and the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPRCC) using innovative methods to dismantle criminal infrastructure. For his efforts, he received high commendations to include MITRE’s President’s Award and a Letter of Appreciation from the European Cybercrime Center (EC3) for delivering transformational solutions that drive mission success. His other forays with government include graduating from the FBI CISO Academy and participating in the first-ever hackathon at the White House using the “We the People” dataset. Being a leader in Cyber, Devon evangelizes intelligent technologies and cultivates workplaces that embrace creativity and inclusion and rewards intellectual curiosity. His work as a policy fellow for New America’s Cybersecurity Initiative and the Center for American Progress Leadership Institute offered unique perspectives on historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and the demands of parenthood and cybersecurity careers. Other writings include policy recommendations to combat cyber threats published by the Aspen Institute, quotes in MIT Technology Review and Carnegie Mellon Today, and presentations at BSides NoVA and Blu Ventures Cyber Summit. Besides his outstanding achievement in the workplace, Devon continues to make significant contributions to the community. Devon was honored with the Working Parent of the Year Award and was recognized at the Work Beyond Summit. From 2015-2020, through his nonprofit, STEMLY, Devon advocated for high-quality STEM education at high schools in Washington, D.C. Devon led the organization to distribute full-tuition scholarships to deserving high schoolers across the District to attend STEM summer camps. STEMLY’s crowning achievement though was a collaboration in 2016, as a founding member of Washington Leadership Academy, which equipped students with four years of computer science education. WLA was 1 of 10 schools awarded the XQ Super School grant of $10M to propel its mission of preparing kids to thrive in the world and change it for the better. Devon has two degrees in Computer Science from North Carolina A&T State University where he now serves on the industry advisory board. He has a second Master’s degree in Information Security Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon as a GEM Fellow and holds a CISSP certification. 

Dr. Sagar Samtani is an Assistant Professor and Grant Thornton Scholar in the Department of Operations and Decision Technologies at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University (IU). He is also a Fellow within the Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research (CACR) at IU. Samtani graduated with his Ph.D. in May 2018 from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Lab in the University of Arizona’s Management Information Systems (MIS) department in the Eller College of Management. From 2014 – 2017, Samtani served as a NSF SFS Fellow in the AZSecure Program at the University of Arizona. Dr. Samtani’s research centers around Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity, including developing deep learning, network science, and text mining approaches for open-source software security, Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI), advanced cyberinfrastructure security, AI risk management, and Dark Web analytics applications. Samtani has published over fifty journal and conference papers on these topics in leading Information Systems (IS) venues such as MIS Quarterly, Journal of MIS, cybersecurity venues such as IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, ACM Transactions on Privacy and Security, IEEE Security and Privacy (S&P), and Computers and Security, and machine learning venues such as ACM KDD, IEEE ICDM, IEEE Intelligent Systems, and others. His research has received over $2M in funding from NSF’s cybersecurity programs, including Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) for CTI research and AI for cybersecurity education, Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) for operational cybersecurity research, and CyberCorps SFS for cybersecurity Cyber-AI workforce development, and CISE Research Initiation Initiative (CRII). Dr. Samtani has co-founded workshops on AI for Cybersecurity topics at ACM KDD and IEEE ICDM. He also serves as a Program Committee member or Program Chair of leading AI for cybersecurity and CTI conferences and workshops, including IEEE S&P Deep Learning for Security Workshop, USENIX ScAINet, ACM AISec, IEEE Intelligence and Security Informatics, Conference on Applied Machine Learning for Information Security, and others. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for ACM TMIS, ACM DTRAP, and Information and Management. He is deeply engaged with industry, serving on the CompTIA Information Sharing and Analysis Organization (ISAO) Executive Advisory Council and Board of Directors for the DEFCON AI Village. Similarly, he regularly presents at industry venues and conferences, including RSA, DEFCON, JPMorgan Chase, IT Nation, and others. Samtani has won several awards for his research, including the ACM SIGMIS Doctoral Dissertation award in 2019, Runner-Up for the INFORMS Nunamaker-Chen Dissertation Award in 2018, and multiple teaching awards for his courses on AI for cybersecurity, CTI, and business analytics. Samtani has received over 100 media citations from outlets such as Miami Herald, Fox, Science Magazine, AAAS, Associated Press, and The Penny Hoarder. He is a member of INFORMS, AIS, ACM, IEEE, and INNS.

Dan Guido is the founder of an industry-leading software security firm that employs 80 professionals and other SFS grads, he has contributed to an array of government programs and publications and nurtured the cybersecurity community in NYC. His SFS internships at NSA and his post-graduation employment at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY helped steer his career, marked by continuing government and community service to help policymakers, students, and entrepreneurs. In 2012, Dan founded Trail of Bits to address software security challenges with cutting-edge research. In his tenure leading Trail of Bits as CEO, Dan has grown the team to 80 engineers, led their work on more than a dozen programs with DARPA and the DOD, and routinely transition research to practice. In 2019, Trail of Bits was recognized by Forrester as the leader for “Small Cybersecurity Consulting Services.” In 2020, Built In recognized Trail of Bits as a “Best Place to Work” in three categories: small company, top paying, and best overall, ranked against more than 7,000 companies in NYC.

David Manz is currently a Chief Cyber Security Scientist in the National Security Directorate at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He leads a team of a dozen engineers, scientists and support staff. He holds a B.S. in Computer and Information Science from the Robert D. Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Idaho. David also has experience teaching undergraduate and graduate computer science courses and is an adjunct faculty at Washington State University. David has co-authored numerous papers and presentations on cyber security, control system security, and cryptographic key management.

Patrick Kelly has bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in public policy from the George Washington University.  Patrick began to serve his country after graduation and has taken on increasing positions of trust and responsibility in several agencies. His first assignments were at the Federal Reserve and at the Department of Health and Human Services (where he served as Senior Official for Privacy and the Information Security Branch Chief at the Office of Inspector General). His currently is with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) where he is the Critical Infrastructure Policy Director. He also chairs the Federal Financial Institution Examination Council (FFIEC)'s Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Working Group (CCIWG) that collaborates on cybersecurity guidance and assessments related the systemic operational risk to the national banking system. Patrick is an outstanding supporter of the SFS program; as an adjunct faculty member, he led the GW Scholarship for Service Seminar course on Cybersecurity Governance since 2012 and in that role has mentored dozens of CyberCorps students.

Josiah Dykstra, author of "Essential Cybersecurity Science," a 2016 guide for using the scientific method to build, test, and evaluate systems. In 2017, he received both the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) and the Hope College Young Alumni Award. In 2013, he received the Director of National Intelligence's Galileo Award and the U.S. Department of Defense's David O. Cooke Excellence in Public Administration Award. Ever motivated to share and apply his extensive knowledge, Dykstra mentors university students and junior National Security Agency (NSA) employees. Dykstra graduated from an SFS program at Iowa State University with a master's degree in information assurance in 2004. He also received a doctoral degree from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, another SFS school, in 2013. Dykstra is currently a cybersecurity expert employed by the NSA.

Mischel Kwon graduated from a joint SFS program at Marymount University and George Washington University in 2005, receiving a master's degree in computer science with an emphasis in information assurance. While serving as the deputy director for information technology security staff at the U.S. Department of Justice, she built the first Justice Security Operations Center to monitor and defend the department against cyber threats. Kwon also served as the director of the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT), spearheading the organization responsible for analyzing and reducing cyber threats and vulnerabilities in federal networks, disseminating cyber threat warning information and coordinating national incident response activities. After leaving government service, Kwon served as vice president of public sector security for RSA Security, leading the company in assisting the public-sector security solutions, strategies, technologies and policy. In 2016, she founded MKACyber, a managed security operations services provider and security consulting company. She currently serves as MKACyber's CEO.

Steven Hernandez has held information assurance positions at the U.S. Department of Education, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and an NSA National Security Administration Center of Academic Excellence Research Institute in Idaho. In 2010, he joined the Department of Health of Human Services, where he has served as chief information security officer for the Office of Inspector General. In 2016, the Department of Education hired Hernandez as chief information security officer. In this role, he maintains the department's integrity and privacy, and coordinates and integrates all aspects of its cybersecurity, telecommunications and information security programs. Hernandez graduated from the SFS program at Idaho State University with a Master of Business Administration in information assurance/computer information systems in 2007, and a bachelor's degree in computer information systems and an associate degree in electronic systems from the same institution.