Office of Homeland Security official to keynote Digital Forensics Research Workshop Aug. 7-9 at Syracuse University

Office of Homeland Security official to keynote Digital Forensics Research Workshop Aug. 7-9 at Syracuse UniversityAugust 03, 2002Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

Penrose (Parney) Albright, assistant director of homeland and national security in the Office of Science and Technology Policy and senior director for research and development in the Office of Homeland Security in the Executive Office of the President, will give the keynote address at the second Digital Forensics Research Workshop (DFRWS) on Aug. 7-9 at Syracuse University.

“I am extremely pleased that Syracuse University has been chosen to host this prestigious workshop,” says Stephen Chapin, associate professor in SU’s L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) and director of the Center for Systems Assurance (CSA) at Syracuse University. “Syracuse University and the Central New York region have great strength in the general area of systems assurance, and I believe that these kind of events will help the world take notice of those strengths.”

Digital forensics is the science of extracting evidence and reconstructing events on computer and network systems. DFRWS brings researchers, investigators and practitioners together for active discussion to support research and development in computer forensics. The workshop is sponsored by the Information Directorate of the Rome Air Force Research Lab and the Center for Systems Assurance.

Albright’s keynote address will kick off the workshop at 9 a.m. Aug. 7 in the Public Events Room, Room 220 of Eggers Hall.

Along with Albright’s address, the workshop will feature three presentation sessions and three group workshop sessions Aug. 7 and 8 that focus on different aspects of digital forensic research.

Albright has been involved in the national security arena since 1986. His most recent assignment was with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where he initiated and managed programs in hydrodynamic drag reduction, molecular biology, target tagging and speech encoding.

Prior to his time at DARPA, Albright was with the science and technology division of the Institute for Defense Analyses. He is a nationally known expert in ballistic missile boost-phase phenomenology and launch detection systems, and has served on several national panels in that area, including the so-called Everett Panel on Space Based Infrared satellites; the Space-based Infrared Architecture Study; the Congressionally-mandated “Heritage sensor” study, and the Space Systems Phenomenology Study.

Albright has been involved for many years with studies and analyses of ballistic and cruise missile defense concepts, including technical and performance analyses of space-based and airborne laser programs; sea-based ballistic missile defense concepts; boost-phase intercept systems; and national missile defense concepts. He has served on a number of prominent panels related to missile defense, including all of the various so-called “Welch Panels” associated with National Missile Defense. Albright has also been part of the Congressionally-mandated reviews of the lethality of the Patriot PAC-3 and Standard Missile/Arrow systems; the Boost-Phase Intercept study for USD(A&T); and led the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense study for OSD and the Joint Staff. He has been a member of the Space-based Laser Independent Review Team, and the Senior Steering Group for National Cruise Missile Defense. He led the analytic portion of the joint U.S.-Israeli Short Range Rocket Defense study commissioned by the Secretary of Defense, and served as the technical lead for the Theater Air and Missile Defense Modernization panel for the 1996 Quadrennial Defense Review.

Albright also served on the national panel that reviewed the nerve gas transport modeling of the Khamisiyah release event in Iraq. He led the analytic team for the 1999 Defense Science Board Summer Study, which revolved around issues associated with the transport and sustainment of future Army rapid deployment forces. Albright has also led or participated in studies for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community in the area hyperspectral and multispectral sensor technologies and their application to a diverse set of problems.

Albright received a Ph.D. in physics in 1985 from the University of Maryland, and a bachelor’s degree in physics and applied mathematics from George Washington University in 1979.