Cybersecurity leaders Keith Alexander, Kevin Mandia featured at March 29 SMU Tate Lecture

DALLAS (SMU) – Former NSA Director and commander of U.S. Cyber Command Keith Alexander, and Kevin Mandia, president of FireEye Security, will be the featured speakers at the Omni Hotels Lecture of the Willis M. Tate Distinguished Lecture Series at SMU Tuesday March 29. Their discussion will be moderated by Fred Chang, director of SMU’s Darwin Deason Institute for Cyber Security.

Keith Alexander

Kevin Mandia

Fred Chang

Alexander and Mandia will answer questions at the Turner Construction/Wells Fargo Tate Student Forum at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday in Hughes-Trigg Student Center Ballroom, 3140 Dyer St. The student forum is a lively question-and-answer session with the Tate speaker for area high school students, SMU students, faculty and staff.

The lecture will begin at 8 p.m. Tuesday at SMU’s McFarlin Auditorium, 6405 Boaz Lane. 

SMU students are eligible for free admission to Tate Lectures. Student tickets are distributed in the basement of McFarlin Auditorium beginning at 7 p.m. on the evening of the lecture. Tickets are distributed on a first-come, first-served basis and students must show a valid SMU ID to claim a ticket.

Keith Alexander is the CEO and president of IronNet Cybersecurity. In this role, he provides strategic vision to corporate leaders on cybersecurity issues through development of cutting-edge technology, consulting and education.

Before assuming his current position, Alexander served as the first commander of U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) from 2010–14 and as director of the National Security Agency (NSA) from 2005–14. He also was chief of the Central Security Service (CSS). As commander of USCYBERCOM, he was responsible for planning, coordinating and conducting operations and defense of the Department of Defense (DoD) computer networks. As NSA director and CSS chief, he was in charge of a DoD agency with foreign intelligence requirements, military combat support and responsibilities for protection of the national security information system.

Alexander holds a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy and master’s degrees from Boston University, the Naval Post Graduate School and the National Defense University.

Kevin Mandia became president of FireEye, a leader in cyber security, in February 2015. He has spent nearly 20 years in information security, beginning in the military as a computer security officer at the Pentagon. In 2004 he founded Mandiant Corporation, computer consulting services, and served as its CEO and president. Before forming Mandiant, he built the computer forensics and investigations group at Foundstone computer security services from its infancy to a global practice.

Mandia has developed specialized classes for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government agencies. He has trained hundreds of attorneys in the technical aspects of computer forensics and teaches courses at The George Washington University. He is co-author of two books: Incident Response: Performing Computer Forensics and Incident Response: Investigating Computer Crime.

Mandia earned a B.S. in computer science from Lafayette College and an M.S. in forensic science from The George Washington University.

Frederick R. Chang, moderator, holds three positions in SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering: director of the Darwin Deason Institute for Cyber Security, Bobby B. Lyle Centennial Distinguished Chair in Cyber Security and professor of computer science and engineering. He also is a Senior Fellow in the John Goodwin Tower Center for Political Studies in Dedman College.

Chang is a Distinguished Scholar in the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas at Austin, where he previously directed the Center for Information Assurance and Security. He has served as director of research at the National Security Agency and received the NSA director’s Distinguished Service Medal. Chang won the 2014 Information Security magazine’s Security 7 Award for Education and is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Engineering.

Chang earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Oregon and completed the Program for Senior Executives at the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

###

21692-nr-03/22/16-kc