Stevens experts win NSF honors for computer security work  

In the twilight worlds of the amateur Internet hacker and the electronic espionage professional, faulty security coding, scalable firewalls, and imperfect e-padlocks are invitations to infiltrate and steal. At risk are the safety and integrity of financial records, institutional archives and sensitive national security data stored on the most advanced computer systems. Increasingly, academic researchers are being called upon to design new methods to block such major threats to information privacy.

At Stevens Institute of Technology, the National Science Foundation has recognized two junior faculty members for their recent outstanding efforts in this field. Drs. Anindya Banerjee and Adriana Compagnoni, both of the Computer Science Department, have each received the NSF Early Career Award to honor distinguished research they have performed and are planning to conduct.

Combined, the cash components of the two awards will total more than $600,000. Each professor's award will be apportioned over a five-year period. The monies are meant to fund the pursuit of both research and teaching, allowing the professors to offer advanced courses based on their findings. This intention dovetails with the Stevens educational environment of Technogenesis^®, in which students, faculty and industry nurture new technologies from concept to the marketplace, in the spirit of project-based learning.

Dr. Stephen Bloom, director of computer science, notes with pride that it is rare for the NSF to bestow this award on two researchers at a single institution. "This puts Stevens in a league with Carnegie-Mellon, Harvard, MIT and Stanford," says Bloom.

Dr. Erich Kunhardt, dean of the School of Applied Sciences and Liberal Arts, agrees: "These Early Career Awards reflect the superior quality of the computer science faculty, and that projects to the greater Stevens community."

"Increasingly," says Banerjee of his research, "software is being built using components, and my research tests how to integrate these components securely." He hopes to involve both undergraduate and graduate students in his work over the next five years.

The goal of Compagnoni's research, as she describes it, is to "generate a new kind of compiler that will warranty a given safety policy." The policy may include the restriction of certain portions of a computer's memory from being accessed. Compagnoni's job is to create the complex encoding that prevents breaches of any restriction. She also plans to involve students in her work at the graduate level.

Each professor prepared a 15-page document describing his or her planned research when applying for the Early Career Award. Banerjee and Compagnoni earned their respective doctorates after 1992, which was another condition of applying for the award.

With the growing expertise in computer security at Stevens, and as privacy and anti-hacking issues gain in urgency, says Bloom, Stevens promises to be "out front with technology solutions to head off cyberspace disasters before they happen."

About Stevens Institute of Technology

Founded in 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology is one of the leading technological universities in the world dedicated to learning and research. Through its broad-based curricula, nurturing of creative inventiveness, and cross disciplinary research, the Institute is at the forefront of global challenges in engineering, science, and technology management. Partnerships and collaboration between, and among, business, industry, government and other universities contribute to the enriched environment of the Institute. A new model for technology commercialization in academe, known as Technogenesis®, involves external partners in launching business enterprises to create broad opportunities and shared value.

Stevens offers baccalaureates, master’s and doctoral degrees in engineering, science, computer science and management, in addition to a baccalaureate degree in the humanities and liberal arts, and in business and technology. The university has a total enrollment of 2,150 undergraduate and 3,500 graduate students, with about 250 full-time faculty. Stevens’ graduate programs have attracted international participation from China, India, Southeast Asia, Europe and Latin America. Additional information may be obtained from its web page at www.stevens.edu.  

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