My Upcoming Plenary Talk in New York City on Cybersecurity, Game Theory, and Operations Research

When the invitation arrived a few months ago from Professor Quanyan Zhu of New York University asking me whether I would be interested in giving a plenary talk at a conference in New York City, I did not hesitate. The conference, SecGames 2016, Decision and Game Theory for Security, will take place November 2-4, 2016.

First, the theme of the conference meshes perfectly with one of my major research themes; secondly, the venue is one of my favorite cities (I grew up in neighboring Yonkers), plus the season - mid-Fall is also perfect, and I had collaborated with Professor Zhu on another initiative.

Also, I do believe in the importance of having female plenary speakers at technical conferences, so it is important, when invited, and it is feasible (I am not on another continent speaking elsewhere), to accept the invitation.

The conference has a great organizing committee and the technical program committee consists of leaders in game theory and cybersecurity.

I have started working on my presentation, which is on: Game Theory Models of Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Investments Under Network Vulnerability. I am having a terrific time preparing my presentation. In my presentation I will focus on research that I have done both independently and with collaborators which integrates game theory and operations research.

As a plenary speaker, one has to generate and sustain interest among the audience members, so, of course, it is important to have great content and a topic that one is very excited to be speaking on.

I am one of two plenary speakers - with the other one being Dr. George Cybenko of Dartmouth.

UMass Amherst has an announcement for my plenary talk at this conference.

I have had some wonderful speaking engagements in NYC, some not very typical. In fact, just yesterday, while teaching my Transportation and Logistics class about the Braess paradox, I showed my students a segment of a videoclip of the World Science Festival panel in NYC on Traffic that I was part of in 2009, which was an extraordinary experience.

 Also, in 2013, I was on the Transportation panel, along with Dr. Janette Sadik-Khan, at the New York Times Energy for Tomorrow conference in NYC. The panel was moderated by the Times columnist Joe Nocera. You can view the video here.

In November 2008 I was a plenary speaker at the North American Regional Science Association in Brooklyn and my presentation can be downloaded here.

I remember walking fondly over the Brooklyn Bridge, which is a favorite bridge of mine, and I hope to do that again next month in NYC!