Instructors for the ICS/SCADA Training Program are experts in the field of Cybersecurity.
Dr. Reza Abdolee
Dr. Reza Abdolee is currently an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Computer Science at California State University, Channel Islands. He was an Adjunct Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) between 2019 and 2022.. In his current academic position, Dr. Abdolee teaches cybersecurity, computer architecture, and programming. He conducts multidisciplinary research in cybersecurity with applications to industrial control systems (ICS) and industrial Internet-of-Things (IIoT). Dr. Abdolee is also the founder and CEO of Novesh company, where he leads a team of cybersecurity experts and industreial control engineers. At Novesh, he offer cybersecurity products and services to private sectors with industry vertical featuring either of Information Technology (IT) and Operation Technology (OT) divisions. Dr. Abdolee worked in the high-tech and manufacturing industries for about 10 years. His latest industry position was with Qualcomm Inc., where he served as an engineer on the modeling and implementation of digital subsystems for wireless devices. Dr. Abdolee has been appointed as a research scholar at Bell Labs in Stuttgart, Germany, and participated in the design and implementation of IoT and wireless communication subsystems. He is a member of the California Governor’s Cybersecurity Taskforce Committee and contributes to creating and implementing plans to address the shortage of cybersecurity experts and specialists in the state.
Dr. Vida Vakilian
Dr. Vakilian is currently an Assistant Professor at California State University, Channel Islands (CSUCI). Prior to joining CSU, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of California, Riverside. She received her Ph.D. degree from the University of
Montréal, Canada, in Electrical Engineering in 2014. She is working on several research topics in collaboration with industry and R&D laboratories. Dr. Vakilian is the recipient of the Enhancing Access to the Radio Spectrum (EARS) Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF).