Individualized Cybersecurity Research Mentoring (iMentor) Workshop 2023

Title: Security Researcher, Educator, and Leader in Academia – Reflections on Career Paths and Opportunities

Abstract: My goal of this talk is to illuminate, empower, and inspire graduate students, early-stage researchers, and other members of the audience interested in academic careers in Computer Science, in particular in the dynamic field of computer and cyber security. Drawing from personal experiences, I offer a candid exploration of my own career trajectory from cyberspace to outer space, unveiling pivotal opportunities, navigating challenges, and distilling the invaluable lessons collected along my academic journey – all in a non-scientific, but fully subjective narrative.

Bio: Christina Pöpper is a faculty of Computer Science at New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) where she is heading the Cyber Security & Privacy (CSP-) Lab. She is the Director of Research at the Center for Cyber Security at NYUAD and a Global Network Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU. Since Summer 2023, she has been serving as Program Head of Computer Science at NYUAD. She holds a Ph.D. and a graduate degree in Computer Science from ETH Zurich.

Her research interest is cyber security and privacy for real-world systems. Her focus areas are wireless and communication security, including cellular network security, secure localization, and aerial cybersecurity, as well as privacy and anonymity in communication networks, detection and prevention of disinformation, and LLM security and privacy.  In the past, she worked at the European Space Agency in Paris. She is excited about everything from cyberspace to outer space. The research work of her group has been recognized by the Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure program of GSMA, the GSM Association. She is currently co-chairing the TPCs of NDSS’24 and ACNS’24. She has been a member of the steering committee of ACM WiSec, the ACM Conference on Security and Privacy in Wireless and Mobile Networks, since 2018, and was TPC Co-Chair in 2018 and General Chair in 2021. Since 2021, she has been a member of the Executive Committee of ACM SIGSAC and she is serving as an Associate Editor of the Viewpoints section of CACM, the Communications of the ACM.