IU Cybersecurity Center Appoints New Director
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Indiana University Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research has named Von Welch director. He has been the center's deputy director since 2011 and will succeed Fred Cate, who will serve as a senior fellow. July 1, 2014
News Release
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Indiana University Vice President for Information Technology Brad Wheeler has announced that Von Welch will succeed Fred H. Cate as director of IU's Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.
Cate, Distinguished Professor and C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law in the Maurer School of Law, is stepping down after serving as founding director for over 11 years. Welch has served as the center’s deputy director since early 2011. David G. Delaney, a visiting assistant professor in the IU Maurer School of Law, will become the center's new deputy director. Cate said he will remain actively involved with the center, serving as a senior fellow going forward.
IU President Michael A. McRobbie, who founded CACR in 2003, thanked Cate for his service and welcomed Welch into his new role as director.
“Fred Cate is a pre-eminent authority on cybersecurity whose research and expertise has brought great distinction to CACR and Indiana University for more than a decade,” McRobbie said. “It was a pleasure to work closely with Fred in the founding of CACR, and I am extremely proud that under his leadership, the center has developed into a national leader in the scholarship of cybersecurity-related issues. In addition, Fred himself has done much to shape the national policy discussion in this vitally important field, enhancing the university's reputation in the process.
“While we will miss Fred's leadership of CACR, I am delighted that he has decided to remain affiliated with the center as a senior fellow, and I have every confidence that Von Welch, a highly regarded cybersecurity researcher in his own right, will continue to enhance the center’s national reputation as CACR’s new leader.”
Welch has an extensive background in cybersecurity. Before joining IU, he was the founding co-director of the Cybersecurity Directorate at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, based at the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. He currently serves as director and principal investigator for the Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure, which provides cybersecurity assistance and guidance to projects funded by the National Science Foundation.
“The accomplishments of CACR would not have been possible without Fred Cate, and I'm ecstatic we'll continue to benefit from his skills and presence in his new role as a CACR senior fellow and through our ongoing relationship with the Center for Law, Ethics and Applied Research in Health Information,” Welch said.
“It's a true honor for me to be leading an organization with such a stellar reputation as CACR and composed of such a talented group of faculty, researchers and staff. I’m incredibly excited about our future.”
Cate said he is grateful for the opportunity to have served as CACR’s director for more than a decade and is eager to continue working with the center’s faculty and staff.
“It has been my good fortune to serve as director for 11 years, ever since President McRobbie created the center in 2003. He anticipated then — far earlier than almost anyone else — that cybersecurity would become a critical national and global priority, and he believed it to be IU's responsibility not only to address the technical issues, but to work with government, industry, higher education, the press and the public to respond to the policy, management and behavioral challenges as well,” Cate said. “It has been a privilege to see his vision executed, and I look forward to what CACR can accomplish next.”
The Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research is affiliated with IU's Pervasive Technology Institute. The center works closely with its partner organizations at the university: CLEAR Health Information, the Maurer School of Law, the Kelley School of Business, the School of Informatics and Computing, Research and Education Networking-Information Sharing and Analysis Center, the University Information Policy Office and the University Information Security Office. CACR has been designated by the National Security Agency as a National Center for Academic Excellence in both Information Assurance Education and Research.
Source: Indiana University