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ECE Seminars

Social Cybersecurity


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Date:  Tue, November 19, 2024
Time:  12:00pm - 1:00pm
Location:  Holmes Hall 244
Speaker:  Dr. Danielle Cummings, Researcher and Visiting Professor, Department of Defense

Sponsored by the College of Engineering Professors and Pizza seminar series.  Please RSVP by noon on November 18th at  https://forms.gle/H1L6xgwwmo3Ff7bz7

Abstract

The cyber warfare landscape has evolved drastically over the last decade. Recent events, ranging from the compromise of political elections to the genocide in Myanmar provoked by false information on Facebook, have revealed that social media manipulation has the potential to become a dangerous weapon in affecting human behavior. Disinformation can amplify radical and extremist ideas, prevent individuals from making informed decisions and erode trust in our national institutions. 

Social Cybersecurity is an emerging research field that poses the question: how might communities build resiliency against disinformation and influence campaigns? The goal of the research is to empower individuals to engage in healthy and informed social discourse while allowing the civil character of the community to persist.

Biography

Dr. Danielle Cummings is a Researcher and Visiting Professor for the Department of Defense where she uses and teaches Lean Startup methodology to help teams create mission impact at speed. Her research interests include multimodal interaction methods for increasing situational awareness in hazardous environments, culturally-centered pedagogy and human-centered cybersecurity.

Dr. Cummings served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Computer & Cyber Sciences department at the US Air Force Academy. She is also a former instructor for Girls Who Code, and frequently hosts various STEM-based educational programs targeting minority youth. She is the founder and former committee chair of Black Women in Computing, a  community focused on increasing the number of black women and other minorities in computing-related fields. 

Dr. Cummings holds a B.A. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Art from The Ohio State University, an M.S. in Software Engineering from the University of Houston, and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Texas A&M University.


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