Faculty Highlight: George Grispos, Christian Haas, Andrea Wiggins and Rui Zhao

Name: George Grispos
Hometown: Nicosia, Cyprus
Research Areas: Digital Forensics & Cybersecurity

Welcome to IS&T! Tell us a little about yourself - where are you coming from and what about IS&T makes you excited about being here?

I moved to Omaha from Ireland. I am excited about joining IS&T because of the growing stature of its cybersecurity program (e.g. the new NSA certification!) .

What do you like to do when you're not at IS&T?

Watching soccer, I'm a big sports fan in general - hopefully I can start to learn more about football here in the US.

What about your research area has you most excited? What do you hope to achieve?

Electronic devices are everywhere! We are now even including them in our own bodies. What I am particularly excited about is how do we investigate these devices planted in our body? What can they tell us about a crime that has been committed?

What classes are you teaching? What are you most excited about for instructing these classes?

This semester my class is Computer & Network Forensics. I hope I can pass on some of the knowledge I have in digital forensics to students and they can use this knowledge in their next role.

Anything else you'd like us to know about you?

If you are interested to learn more about my research or digital forensics in general, stop by my office for a chat!

Name: Christian Haas
Hometown: Mutlangen, Germany (near Stuttgart)
Research Areas: Agent-Based Modeling, Computational Economics, Data Analytics

Welcome to IS&T! Tell us a little about yourself - where are you coming from and what about IS&T makes you excited about being here?

I’m originally from Germany, where I did one of my masters and my PhD at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. After my PhD I joined IBM as a Senior Data Scientist for about three years, where I worked with various clients on data analytics projects. However, my plan always was to go back into academia, so I’m really excited about getting the opportunity to join IS&T.
One aspect I find particularly interesting about the college of IS&T is that it's set up in a very interdisciplinary way. During my time at KIT I was closely working with colleagues from computer science, economics, and social science, and I learned to really appreciate the various points of view on specific subjects. It is also very helpful for students to have an interdisciplinary curriculum, which will benefit them in their future careers.

What do you like to do when you're not at IS&T?

One of my hobbies is traveling. Back in Europe, there were many places to see within a couple of hours' drive. For example, we really liked to go into the wine regions of France. I’m looking forward to picking the traveling up and to explore this part of the US.

Also, we just adopted a dog, so he keeps us busy outside of IS&T as well.

What about your research area has you most excited? What do you hope to achieve?

Coming from a mixed IS, CS and economics background, a lot of the theory focuses on rather static scenarios (think, what happens in a specific system in equilibrium). In my research, I’m using Agent-based Models to simulate and analyze dynamic aspects of systems. This approach allows us to understand the effects of certain (system) rules on agent behavior, or analyze the properties of a system which is not in its optimal state. The goal of such an approach is to design policies which are robust against a wide variety of settings, leading to an overall more resilient system.

What classes are you teaching? What are you most excited about for instructing these classes?

I’m teaching Advanced Statistical Methods for IS&T this semester, and Data Analytics topics in general. What excites me the most about that is that I believe I can use my industry experience in Data Analytics to make the sometimes a bit dry topics of statistics more tangible for students. With plenty of examples how the methods are applied in real life scenarios, I hope to give the students a feeling of how they can use this knowledge in their future careers.

Anything else you'd like us to know about you?

When you’re interested about travel tips for Germany, just stop by my office!

Name: Andrea Wiggins
Hometown: Lansing, Michigan
Research Areas: Open Collaboration, Citizen Science, Data Management
College Activities: BRIDGE Lab

Welcome to IS&T! Tell us a little about yourself - where are you coming from and what about IS&T makes you excited about being here?

I spent the last three years on the faculty of the University of Maryland College of Information Studies, which was a great experience, but I missed the Midwest. So I came here because I strongly identify with the mission of the Metropolitan University and community engagement is core to my research, so it seemed like a really good fit. I'm most excited about bringing more service learning into my courses and developing new research with local and regional impact, which are things that IS&T faculty do well, so there's a lot for me to learn here.

What do you like to do when you're not at IS&T?

I love hiking and engaging with the natural environment--right now I'm fascinated with learning about the Nebraska tallgrass prairie habitat's natural history and plant species. I also enjoy birding, which is a competitive form of birdwatching. So far I've seen 497 species of birds around the world, but only 58 in Nebraska, so I have a lot more birds to see here. I usually turn to knitting when the weather cools off, and usually take vintage film cameras on day trips.

What about your research area has you most excited? What do you hope to achieve?

Citizen Science is a type of collaboration that engages members of the public in doing authentic science. So there's a lot to be excited about, with many potential benefits for individuals, science, and society. My research tackles several different aspects of that space to help move it forward and support better science and better participation experiences. In the long run, I'm helping establish an empirical foundation for decision making around the design and management of these projects and their supporting technologies. Like many specific contexts of practice, we need technologies that are well suited to both the people who use them and the requirements of the task at hand.

What classes are you teaching? What are you most excited about for instructing these classes?

First I have ISQA 3420, Managing in a Digital World. For me what is exciting about that is teaching undergrads for the first time, so that will be a new adventure. The other is a special topics course called From Data to Decisions, and it's a class that I developed last year that follows the Data Carpentry model for hands-on teaching of data science tools. It basically starts with finding data sets and developing solid questions to investigate with the data, and moves through data cleaning, analysis, and documentation to generate results focused on supporting decision making, which directly mirrors real-world practices. It's very hands-on and although we don't get into great depth with different tools, the students have to apply general concepts to their specific data sets, so they have to make a lot of decisions about what they're doing in their analyses and why they're doing it that way.

Anything else you'd like us to know about you?

It takes a forward-thinking faculty to hire someone like me because I don't look like a typical Information Systems academic. All of my graduate education has been in interdisciplinary information science programs that came from strong library science roots, and my research falls outside of the usual scope of Information Systems scholarship. For example, I've been an advisor to EPA, NIH, and NASA as they set policies and agendas for engaging in crowdsourcing and citizen science to support their agency missions. I've also published extensively in ecology, because that's where the results of my research have often had the most potential for improving practice. A lot of universities have a narrow interpretation of "impact" and this kind of work is considered risky, so I'm delighted to join a faculty that values the real-world impact of applied research and community engagement.

Name: Rui Zhao
Hometown: Xi'an, China
Research Areas: Cybersecurity Program, Lab Mobile Security and Privacy

Welcome to IS&T! Tell us a little about yourself - where are you coming from and what about IS&T makes you excited about being here?

This is my first job in academia, and I'm glad I could have this opportunity to work with the talented people here. Also, my position is specifically for cybersecurity which is my research area. We have a good program for cybersecurity education and research, which is why I chose this school. I think the school and the program can help me a lot in my career and I also want to contribute to the growth of the program and school.

What do you like to do when you're not at IS&T?

Cooking.

What about your research area has you most excited? What do you hope to achieve?

I have published ten papers in high reputation conferences and journals in my past six years. At the end of last year, I received the Rath Award for the Best PhD Thesis with the Potential for the Greatest Societal Impact. I'm glad to received that award. Although the last 6 years were a very tough time, but I enjoyed the process. The next a few years may be another hard time but I'm ready for to be a good educator and researcher.

What classes are you teaching? What are you most excited about for instructing these classes?

For the first semester I'm teaching the course of Linux Administration, I am excited to teach this basic course and it is a great start. Students will get to know how to manage the Linux systems. In the future I hope I can also teach some security related courses.