Cybersecurity Institute Director Honored for Lasting Research Work

Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham, the Louis A. Beecherl Jr. Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at UT Dallas, is the inaugural recipient of the CODASPY Award for Outstanding Research on Data Security and Privacy.

The award was presented at the Association of Computing Machinery’s Conference on Data and Applications Security and Privacy (CODASPY).

The award recognizes Thuraisingham’s innovative and lasting research contributions, which have spanned over three decades at Honeywell, MITRE, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and UT Dallas. The award citation notes her work on multilevel secure databases (1980s), the inference problem (1990s), assured information sharing (2000s) and secure data management on the cloud (2010s).

Thuraisingham, who is executive director of the Cyber Security Research and Education Institute at UT Dallas, has received several prior awards, including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society’s 1997 Technical Achievement Award; Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control 2010 Outstanding Contributions Award; and the Society for Design and Process Science 2012 Transformative Achievement Gold Medal. She is also a fellow of many organizations including the IEEE and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“After working in the field for the past 32 years, I am as motivated as ever to continue my research and make significant contributions,” Thuraisingham said. “I am thankful for the opportunities I’ve been presented at Honeywell, MITRE, NSF and UT Dallas, and I’m very grateful to the U.S. government for sponsoring my research.”