Diana Burley
Executive Director
Diana L. Burley, Ph.D., is executive director and chair of the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P) and full professor of human & organizational learning at The George Washington University (GW). Named one of SC Magazine’s Eight Women in IT Security to Watch in 2017 and the 2017 SC Magazine ReBoot awardee for educational leadership in IT security, Dr. Burley is a global cybersecurity expert who regularly advises enterprises on strengthening their cybersecurity posture, managing cybersecurity risk, assessing human factors in the threat environment, and developing a robust cybersecurity workforce. She has testified before Congress and in 2018 the global task force she led on behalf of the world’s leading computing societies published the first set of global cybersecurity curricular guidelines for post-secondary academic institutions. These guidelines, endorsed by the ACM, IEEE, AIS, and IFIP, form the foundation for the first cybersecurity degree accreditation program offered by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). She is a member of the US National Academies Board on Human-Systems Integration. Prior to GW, Dr. Burley led the CyberCorps program and managed a multi-million-dollar computer science education and research portfolio for the US National Science Foundation. Dr. Burley has written nearly 80 publications on cybersecurity, information sharing, and IT-enabled change; including her 2014 co-authored book “Enterprise Software Security: A Confluence of Disciplines.” She has secured approximately $7 million in sponsored research support. Her honors include: 2016 Woman of Influence-Public Sector/Academia by the Executive Women’s Forum in Information Security, Risk Management and Privacy; the 2014 Cybersecurity Educator of the Year; and a 2014 Top Ten Influencer in information security careers. She is the sole recipient of both educator of the year and government leader of the year awards from the Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education, has been honored by the U.S. Federal CIO Council for her work on developing the federal cyber security workforce, and served two appointments on the Cyber Security Advisory Committee of the Commonwealth of Virginia General Assembly Joint Commission on Technology & Science. She holds a BA in Economics from the Catholic University of America; M.S. in Public Management and Policy, M.S. in Organization Science, and Ph.D. in Organization Science and Information Technology from Carnegie Mellon University where she studied as a Woodrow Wilson Foundation Fellow.
David Balenson (SRI International)
Research Director
David Balenson is Vice-chair of the I3P and a Senior Computer Scientist in the Computer Science Laboratory at SRI International. Balenson works to drive R&D organizations and efforts to develop innovative solutions to challenging cybersecurity needs, and provides primary support for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) Cyber Security Division (CSD). His roles for CSD include technical support, subject matter expertise, and project management for programs including the Cyber Physical System Security (CPSSEC) program, the Automotive Cybersecurity Industry Consortium (ACIC), and the Transition to Practice (TTP) program. Balenson was the co-PI for the NSF-funded Cybersecurity Experimentation of the Future (CEF) project, a community-based effort to study current and expected cybersecurity experimentation infrastructure and to produce a strategic plan and roadmap for developing infrastructure that supports tomorrow’s research. Prior to his work at SRI, Balenson was a member of the Senior Professional Staff at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL), where he was the CONOPS lead for JHU/APL’s DARPA-funded National Cyber Range (NCR) Phase II Prototype effort. Balenson has also served as Division Manager for SPARTA’s Security Research Division, which conducted fundamental and applied R&D for DARPA, DHS S&T, and other government customers; and as a Director at McAfee Research, where he helped direct advanced cyber security research, business development, marketing, and technology transfer activities for a leading cybersecurity company. Balenson has worked as an Associate Professorial Lecturer at The George Washington University, teaching graduate-level courses on cryptography, network security, and advanced computer security research topics. Balenson hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.
Heather Drinan
Associate Director
Heather Drinan holds an AB from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame. Previously, she worked on committee staff at the US Senate, as a data analyst at the Drug Enforcement Administration, and as a communications consultant for William M. Mercer. Drinan has been at the I3P since July 2004.
Delores Gibson
Assistant Director of Operations
Delores Gibson was recruited for this position at the I3P after serving as a Program Manager within the Graduate School of Education and Human Development at The George Washington University. She earned a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, where she also supported the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering as their Associate Director.
