Qualifications
Mar 2003 – Feb 2006: Ph.D. Information Security, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Thesis title: Secure Key Establishment (published as a monograph in Springer’s Advances in Information Security book series)
Jul 2004 – Dec 2005: Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (Exited from MBA due to relocation), University of Queensland, Australia
2002: Master of Information Technology and Bachelor of Applied Science (Honours) Industrial & Applied Maths, University of South Australia, Australia
Affiliations
Aug 2016 - Current: The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
Cloud Technology Endowed Professor (Tenured), Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security
Assistant Department Chair, Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security (Summer 2022 - Current)
Ph.D. Information Technology Program Advisor, Department of Information Systems and Cyber Security (2017 - Summer 2022)
The Ph.D. Information Technology program received “UTSA Graduate School’s Innovation in Ph.D./Terminal Degree Program Admissions Award" in Spring 2022
Recipient of
UTSA Graduate School’s Outstanding Graduate Advisor of Record Award in 2022
UTSA Carlos Alvarez College of Business Endowed 1969 Commemorative Award for Overall Faculty Excellence in 2021
UTSA Graduate School’s Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award in 2021
UTSA College of Business Col. Jean Piccione and Lt. Col. Philip Piccione Endowed Research Award for Tenured Faculty in 2018
UTSA (Carlos Alvarez) College of Business Dean’s Distinguished Research Award in 2019–2022
UTSA Honors College Faculty Fellow for 2022-23 academic year
UTSA Next-Gen Faculty Leadership Fellow for 2020-21 academic year, Vice President for Research, Economic Development and Knowledge Enterprise Search Office
UTSA First-Gen STEM Scholars Faculty Mentor for 2021-22 academic year (USAA sponsored program)
UTSA Faculty Mentor for Mid-Career Mentoring program, Fall 2021
Courtesy Appointments, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (since Fall 2017), and Department of Computer Science (Fall 2020 - Summer 2021)
Dec 2022 - Current: Advisory Council Member, Anti-Human Trafficking Intelligence Initiative
Jun 2023 – Current: Adjunct Professor (Courtesy Appointment), University of South Australia, Australia
Nov 2022 - Current: Adjunct Professor (Courtesy Appointment), Singapore University of Technology & Design, Singapore
Apr 2021 – Current: Founding Chair, IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS)’s Technical Committee on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies
Jun 2021 – Current: Founding co-Editor-in-Chief, ACM Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice
Jan 2021 – Dec 2023: ACM Distinguished Speaker and IEEE Computer Society’s Distinguished Visitor
Highly Cited Researcher, Web of Science
Member, Academia Europaea (since 2022)
Fellow, Australian Computer Society (since 2016), Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET; since Oct 2021), and Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA; since Jun 2023)
IET Fellow Assessor (since March 2022)
Technical Advisory Board Member for two U.S.-based startups
Past affiliations
Nov – Dec 2022: Visiting Professor (Courtesy Appointment), University of Technology Sydney, Australia
Jan 2021 – Nov 2022: Adjunct Professor (Courtesy Appointment), University of South Australia, Australia
Apr 2017 – Mar 2019: Honorary Commander, 502nd Air Base Wing, Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, USA
Aug 2016 – Mar 2020: Adjunct Associate Professor (Courtesy Appointment), University of South Australia, Australia
Mar 2011 – Aug 2016: Senior Lecturer, then Associate Professor, University of South Australia, Australia (and Recipient of "2014 Academic Impact and Uptake Award")
Sep 2015 – Feb 2016: Visiting Expert, INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI), Singapore
May 2015 – Dec 2016: Co-Chair, Education Council, Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) Asia Pacific, Singapore
Oct 2011 – Mar 2016: Justice of the Peace for South Australia, Australia
May 2008 – 2016: Member of the International Consultancy Group (Research) @ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime-Korean Institute of Criminology Virtual Forum against Cybercrime Programme
Aug – Dec 2009: Fulbright Scholar at Rutgers University School of Criminal Justice and Palo Alto Research Center (formerly Xerox PARC), USA
Jul 2006 – Mar 2011: Senior Research Analyst, Australian Government Australian Institute of Criminology, Australia (and Recipient of "2009 Fulbright Scholarship" and "2008 Australia Day Achievement Medallion")
I have a broad and interdisciplinary research focus on cyber security, data analytics and digital forensics, where I seek to understand how data can be acquired from contemporary computing devices for both malicious (e.g., criminal / malicious exploitation – cyber offensive) and legitimate (i.e., digital forensics / digital investigation) purposes. The understanding of how data can be acquired (or exfiltrated), particularly in terms of criminal / malicious exploitation, will then inform the design of cyber defensive and privacy-preserving solutions (e.g. using technical approaches such as blockchain and artificial intelligence, and non-technical approaches). I also understand the importance of ensuring my research is relevant to policy and practice, and is aligned with major and ongoing government policy directions and strategies. For example, the cryptographic primitive in one of the three regular U.S. patent applications I filed in 2019 is currently been deployed by a UK cryptocurrency start-up, where I also serve on its advisory board. My patent applications entitled "Lightweight Distributed Signature Protocol For Mobile Computing And IoT Devices" and "Efficient and Secure Distributed Signing Protocol for Mobile Devices in Wireless Networks" were approved on April 19 and November 29, 2022, respectively.
I have had the opportunity to apply my research knowledge and provide expert opinion on policy developments, such as the Australian Government Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Cyber White Paper as a member of the Australian Computer Society Cyber Task Force of experts (2011), and the Australian Bureau of Statistics Draft Conceptual Framework for Cybercrime (2012 and 2013). I have also been engaged as an external paid expert to provide expert advice to two companies on their U.S. Department of Energy SBIR/STTR Phase I proposals in 2020 and 2021, and to provide expert insights in writings to inform North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Allied Command Transformation (ACT) Innovation Hub’s Warfighting 2040 report in 2020. I am also one of two experts involved in the review of the finalized “NISTIR 8006: NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges” report.
I also developed the “All About IoT Security” program in collaboration with a number of subject matter experts, as part of IEEE Educational Activities with support from IEEE Internet of Things Technical Community.
I am serving on the technical advisory board of two U.S.-based start-ups (since Jan 2022), and have been a keynote / plenary speaker at a number of conferences (see Keynotes and invitations presentations), as well as an invited lecturer at the Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (2012), Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security (2014), Singapore Polytechnic (2014), Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur (2017), delivered a one week course funded by the Indian Government’s Global Initiative of Academic Networks), and the International School on Internet of Things & Edge AI: Computing, Communications and Systems (2022) at the University of Calabria in Italy. In 2015, I was an Invited Expert at UNAFEI Criminal Justice (Focus on Investigation, Prosecution, Adjudication, and International Cooperation) Training, at INTERPOL Cyber Research Agenda Workshop, and I was also a Distinguished Speaker at the 1st International Summer School on Computational Forensics (SuCoFo 2016) at Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
I am the founding co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM Distributed Ledger Technologies: Research and Practice, and the founding Chair of IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS)’s Technical Committee on Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies. I also serve as the Senior Editor of Forensic Science International: Digital Investigation, the Department Editor of IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, and the Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, and IEEE Transactions on Big Data, etc. More recently, I was involved as a member of the IEEE Transactions on Big Data - 2020 Best Paper Award Selection Committee and IET Fellow Assessor (see also Other professional activities).
My (limited) media presence is available on Media presentations.
Grants
I am the recipient of the following grants:
National Health and Medical Research Council Ideas Grant “Co-designing a consumer-focused digital health system to improve adverse drug event (ADE) detection, management and reporting”; Co-Chief Investigator; AUD 1.7 million (2023-2026)
Subaward from Boston University – Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice “Innovative ICAC investigation training on IoT, OSINT, dark web, and crypto”, Principal Investigator (Subaward): USD 437,500 (Oct 2022 – Sep 2024)
Sole Principal Investigator (PI). United States Department of Homeland Security (routed via George Mason University’s Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis) “A machine learning-based approach to analyzing and triaging encrypted data containers in law enforcement applications”; USD 500,000 (Fall 2022 – Summer 2024)
Co-PI. Khalifa University’s Center for Cyber-Physical Systems “Cyberthreat Mitigations for OT and IT Environments in the National Critical Infrastructure Sectors” (Mar 2022 – Jul 2023)
Sole PI. Subaward from The University of Texas at Dallas – National Security Agency “Human-in-the-Loop XAI-enabled Vulnerability Detection, Investigation, and Mitigation”; USD 499,985 (my share: USD 166,662; Aug 2021 – Jul 2023)
Co-PI. National Security Agency “Automated Techniques for Cyber Risk Detection and Mitigation in the Presence of Malicious AI Attacks” ; USD 499,968 (Aug 2021 – Jul 2023)
Co-PI. National Security Agency “Machine Learning-centric Cyber Threat Intelligence and Hunting for IoT Systems”; USD 487,028 (Aug 2021 – Jul 2023)
Co-PI. U.S. Department of Defense “A Flexible Testbed for Cyber Deception, Cyber Hardening, and Disinformation Research”; USD 472,921 (Jul 2021 – Jun 2022)
Co-PI. MITRE “Advanced persistent threat (APT) Mitigation Assessments” (Aug – Sep 2020)
Co-PI. National Security Agency “Cyber Defense of Smart Facilities Using Machine Learning and IoT Honeynets” (Award H98230-20-1-0392); USD 150,000 (Sep 2019 – Aug 2021)
Sole PI. National Science Foundation (NSF) “NSF: CCRI: Planning: Collaborative Research: Towards a Software-defined Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) Research Infrastructure for Advanced Manufacturing” (Award 1925723) (Sep 2019 – Aug 2020)
Co-PI. CPS Energy “Secure, Resilient and Smart Grid Cyber-Physical Situational Understanding using Data Driven Decision-Making and AI”; USD 469,000 (Sep 2019 – Aug 2021)
Co-PI. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) “STTR: NASA: ROBOT: Rules Oriented Blockchain Operations Transactor” (Sep 2019 – Aug 2020)
PI. CPS Energy grant, USA "Smart grid security and attack-resilience: A forensics-driven approach"; USD 399,218 (09/2017–08/2019)
Co-PI. Texas National Security Network Excellence Fund “Internet of Things Security & Forensics Lab” (2018)
Senior Personnel. National Science Foundation (NSF) CREST Center for Security and Privacy Enhanced Cloud Computing (2017-2022)
Co-CI. Cooperative Research Centre for Data to Decision grant "Integrated Policing: Federated Data Platform"; AUD 1,236,883 (2016-2019)
Co-CI. University of South Australia Research Themes Investment Scheme grant "Defence against the dark arts: guarding the public discourse from propaganda and fake news, and promoting truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in the media and social media" (2017-2019)
Co-CI. auDa Foundation grant "Defence against the Dark Arts: resisting online social manipulation and propaganda" (2016-2019)
Co-CI. Government of South Australia, SA Health grant "The feasibility and validity of obtaining pre-illness activity data in critically ill patients using 'smart-phone' technology: a validation study" (2016)
CI. University of South Australia Research Themes Investment Scheme grant "A Public Health Approach to Dealing with Sexting" (2015-2016)
CI. National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund (NRLERF) grant "Evidence-based digital forensic framework for drug (and other serious and organised) crime law enforcement investigations in the cloud computing environment"; AUD 269,319 (2013-2015)
Co-CI. BAE Systems stratsec grant "Information Security Research Winter School 2012"
Co-CI. National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund (NRLERF) grant "Exploitation of Electronic Evidence from Mobile Phone Mediated Drug Crime"; AUD 271,040 (2011–2013)
Co-CI. Australian Research Council Discovery Projects grant (DP1096833) "The evolution of cybercrime: the monitoring of serious crime in cyberspace"; AUD 350,000 (2010-2012)
Co-CI. Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration Incorporated (AIJA) grant "ICT and the judiciary: multimedia glossary" (2011)
Awards
IEEE Systems Council's Hyper-Intelligence Technical Committee (HITC) Award for Excellence in Hyper-Intelligence (Technical Achievement) in 2022
Citation: For contributions to secure and reliable hyper-intelligent solution and system designs
IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC) Technical Committee on Homeland Security (TCHS) Research and Innovation Award in 2022
IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society’s Technical Committee on Secure and Dependable Measurement (TCSDM) Mid-Career Award
Citation: For significant contributions to the design of secure and dependable computing systems
IEEE Technical Committee on Scalable Computing (TCSC) Award for Excellence in Scalable Computing (Middle Career Researcher) 2019
Citation: For significant contributions to cyber forensics, particularly in cloud computing and IoT
Best Paper Awards:
IEEE Computer Society Bio-inspired Computing Special Technical Community (STC) Outstanding Paper Award for 2021
2021 IEEE Systems Journal Best Paper Award
2021 IEEE Conference on Dependable and Secure Computing (DSC 2021)
IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine for 2020, IEEE Consumer Technology Society
Journal of Network and Computer Applications’ 2020 Best Research Paper
2019 EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking (JWCN), Springer
17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications (IEEE TrustCom 18)
20th European Symposium on Research in Computer Security (ESORICS 2015; Acceptance Rate: 59/298 = 19.8%)
British Computer Society's Wilkes Award
2019 Runner-up for our paper published in the 2018 volume of The Computer Journal, Oxford University Press
Wilkes Award for the best (sole-authored) paper published in the 2007 volume of The Computer Journal, Oxford University Press
IEEE Outstanding Paper Award, IEEE Blockchain 2019
Best Student Paper Awards
15th International Conference on Information Security and Cryptology (Inscrypt 2019)
Australasian Conference on Information Security and Privacy (ACISP 2005)
Outstanding (Associate) Editor Awards
Digital Communications and Networks Outstanding Associate Editor for 2022
Future Generation Computer Systems' Outstanding Editor Award for 2021
Outstanding Associate Editor of 2018 for IEEE Access
Cybersecurity Educator of the Year – APAC (2016 Cybersecurity Excellence Awards (CEAs) are produced in cooperation with the Information Security Community on LinkedIn)
Winning Team, Germany's University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU) Digital Forensics Research Challenge 2015
2010 Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Pearcey Award for “Taking a risk and making a difference in the development of the Australian ICT industry”
Named one of 10 Emerging Leaders in the Innovation category of The Weekend Australian Magazine / Microsoft's Next 100 series in 2009
2009 Fulbright Professional Scholarship in Australian-United States Alliance Studies – sponsored by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
2008 Australia Day Achievement Medallion in recognition of my dedication and contribution to the Australian Institute of Criminology, and through it to the public service of the nation
Citations
Citations of my research include governmental reports:
(Australian) 2010 Australian Government House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications Report on the Inquiry into Cyber Crime, 2011 Australian Government House of Representatives Joint Select Committee’s Report on Cyber-Safety, 2013 Australian Crime Commission Fact Sheet on “Cyber and Technology Enabled Crime”, 2013 Australian Government House of Representatives Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety's Report on the Inquiry into Cybersafety for Senior Australians, Teachers Registration Board Tasmania “Professional Boundaries: Guidelines for Tasmanian Teachers”, 2018, etc.
(International)
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) “NISTIR 8006: NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges, 2020
European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs “2009 cybercrime study”
International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children’s “Child Pornography: Model Legislation & Global Review (Sixth Edition)” (2010)
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)’s “Counter-Terrorism Reference Curriculum” (2020)
New Zealand Government’s Ministry of Justice “2006 cybercrime survey”
Toronto Police Service “2008 Environmental Scan” report
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) “2010 Transnational organized crime threat assessment” report
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) “Conferencia de las Partes en la Convención de las Naciones Unidas contra la Delincuencia Organizada Transnacional” 2018
United Nations Secretariat “2010 Recent developments in the use of science and technology by offenders and by competent authorities in fighting crime, including the case of cybercrime” report
United Nations Asia and Far East Institute for the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders
2010 US CRS Report for Congress (Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress) entitled “Organized Crime: An Evolving Challenge for U.S. Law Enforcement”
UNODC “Handbook on Identity-related Crime” (2011)
International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children’s report “Online Grooming of Children for Sexual Purposes: Model Legislation & Global Review” (2017)
ITU’s report “Understanding Cybercrime: A Guide For Developing Countries” (August 2011)
Working paper for the Twelfth UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
UNODC Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit report (2012)
United Kingdom (UK) Intellectual Property Office (IPO)’s 3D Printing and Intellectual Property Futures (2018)
United States Department of Energy’s report (2019)
One of my published cryptographic protocols was included in two independent submissions to the IEEE 802.11, the working group setting the standards for wireless LANs, by computer scientists from Fujitsu Labs in America; and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) / Network Working Group by a team of computer scientists from Tropos Networks (US), Toshiba, Huawei, and University of Murcia. A protocol jointly proposed with Sherman Chow (formerly of New York University, US) was used in the P2P solution of the Milagro TLS (pairing-based cryptography for Transport Layer Security) presented to the IETF by researchers from MIRACL Ltd in 2016.
My published design principle about how session keys should be constructed in cryptographic (key establishment) protocols that result in significant benefits for their security was cited in a special publication (SP 800-56A) – Recommendation for Pair-Wise Key Establishment Schemes Using Discrete Logarithm Cryptography – by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. This is one of four academic (i.e. non-NIST and non-international standard) citations, and the other three academic citations are publications of (1) Professor Alfred Menezes (University of Waterloo), Professor Phillip Rogaway (UC Davis), Professor Mihir Bellare (UC San Diego), and Professor Dan Boneh (Stanford University) – the top scholars in the field, and NIST Special Publication 800-56A Revision 3 (April 2018). My cloud forensics research is also cited in the NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges report (Draft NISTIR 8006, 2015) and the final NISTIR 8006: NIST Cloud Computing Forensic Science Challenges report.
I can be contacted on (email) raymond [DOT] choo [AT] fulbrightmail [DOT] org