Dr. Laxima Niure Kandel is an Assistant Professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University at Daytona Beach, Florida. She completed her M.S. degree in Telecommunication and Information Systems from Essex University, Colchester, UK. She received her Ph.D. in Computer Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, in 2020, where she was recognized for her exceptional doctoral work with the outstanding dissertation award. Her research focus is on physical layer security, hardware security, as well as indoor localization and sensing utilizing channel state information. She serves as the associate director of the Cybersecurity and Assured Systems Engineering (CyBASE) Center and is a collaborator with the Center of Aerospace Resilience (CAR). She is actively involved in the development of “Cybersecurity Training Curriculum” for Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Additionally, Dr. Kandel serves as a mentor in the National Science Foundation (NSF) CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (SFS) program at ERAU.

Dr. M. Ilhan Akbas is an Assistant Professor at the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. He received his PhD degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Central Florida, and BS and MS degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the Middle East Technical University. He has research interests in connected and autonomous cyber-physical systems, internet of things, modeling and simulation. Dr. Akbas has industry experience in projects with multinational defense industry partners and large enterprises. Dr. Akbas is the author of more than 50 articles, which have appeared in prestigious venues such as IEEE Transactions, Society of Automotive Engineers Edge Reports and flagship conferences of IEEE and ACM. He serves on several editorial boards and program committees of ACM and IEEE journals and conferences. His research has been funded through grants from National Science of Foundation, Florida Center for Cybersecurity, as well as industry. He is a member of IEEE, ACM, IEEE Communications, IEEE Internet of Things and Complex Systems Societies.

Dr. Radu Babiceanu joined Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in August 2013 as an Associate Professor of Systems Engineering in the Department of Electrical, Computer, Software, and Systems Engineering. He also serves as the Associate Director for the Cybersecurity and Assured Systems Engineering (CyBASE) Center. Dr. Babiceanu received his Ph.D. degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Virginia Tech in 2005, specializing in modeling, design, and analysis of intelligent industrial systems.

Dr. Babiceanu’s research provides a systems approach to design, development, and operation of large-scale cyber-physical systems, with focus on requirements such as system performance, safety, reliability, security, and resiliency. In his research, Dr. Babiceanu uses methodologies such as systems analysis, engineering optimization, discrete-event and continuous simulation, formal methods, network modeling, computational intelligence, and multi-agent systems.

Dr. Omar Ochoa is an assistant professor in the EECS department with over 10 years of experience working in the industry to bring real-world experiences to students. Since joining ERAU, Dr. Ochoa has actively mentored more than 40 undergraduate students resulting in 18 of them joining the graduate school, and of those, six have decided to pursue Ph.Ds. These mentored research experiences have resulted in more than 10 conference and journal publications with undergraduates as authors. Currently, Dr. Ochoa is PI on NSF #2221602 “Expanding the Nation’s STEM Talent Pool by Accelerating Graduate Degree Completion in Computer, Software, and Cybersecurity Engineering”, which includes the mentoring of 25 undergraduate students, and provides a synergistic alignment with this proposal by providing an opportunity for research experiences for SSTEM Scholars. Additionally, Dr. Ochoa is a Co-PI on NSF #2146462 “CyberCorps Scholarship for Service: High-skilled Workforce Development for the Aviation and Aerospace Cybersecurity Domains.” Dr. Ochoa is ERAU’s College of Engineering’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Coordinator.

Dr. Eduardo Rojas earned his B.S. degree from the Universidad de Carabobo, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of South Florida, all in Electrical Engineering; in 2009, 2014 and 2017, respectively. He joined the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2017, where he is currently an associate professor. His research interests are in the area of microwave/mm-wave circuits and antenna applications of additive manufacturing; and RFID for wireless sensing. Rojas is the Director of ERAU’s Wireless Devices and Electromagnetics Laboratory (WIDE Lab www.wide-lab.com). He was the recipient of a CAREER Award from The National Science Foundation in 2019. Rojas has more than 30 peer-reviewed publications, and he is a reviewer for the IEEE MTT-S Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques and Proceedings of the IEEE, among other prestigious journals. Rojas has 4 U.S. patents and is a member of the IEEE MTT-S Technical Committee 26 on RFID, Wireless Sensor and IoT, and the RTCA SC-236 committee for Standards for Wireless Avionics Intra-Communication System (WAIC) within 4200-4400 MHz.