Security of Engineered SystemsEngineering Resilient Interdependent Infrastructures

Oct 16, 2026. 10:30 – 11:30 AM, Klein Hall 104, UNC Charlotte

Dr. Saman Zonouz, Associate Professor, Schools of Cybersecurity & Privacy and Electrical & Computer Engineering — Georgia Tech

ABSTRACT
Critical cyber-physical infrastructures — the power grid, transportation, and manufacturing — integrate networks of
computational and physical processes to deliver essential services worldwide. Protecting these systems against
adversarial parties is vital: their failure would debilitate economic security, public health, and safety. This talk focuses
on real past and potential future threats against critical infrastructures and embedded controllers, exploring
challenges in designing, implementing, and analyzing security solutions for cyber-physical platforms. Dr. Zonouz will
present novel systems for security verification, monitoring, and response in cyber-physical controllers for safe power
grid, transportation, and manufacturing operations.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Saman Zonouz is an Associate Professor at Georgia Tech in the Schools of Cybersecurity and Privacy (SCP) and Electrical
and Computer Engineering (ECE). He directs the Georgia Tech Online Cyber-Physical Security Master’s Program and the
Cyber-Physical Security Research Laboratory (CPSec). His research focuses on security and resilience in cyber-physical
systems. He was recently invited to the U.S. National Academies to share insights on OT security and delivered the Plenary
Keynote at DOE’s Cybersecurity Conference. Dr. Zonouz has been awarded the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for
Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the NSF CAREER Award in Cyber-Physical Systems, and the Google Hall of Fame
Security Award, among others. His group has disclosed numerous zero-day vulnerabilities with published CVEs in critical
infrastructure controllers from Siemens, Allen-Bradley, and Wago. He is General Co-Chair for ACM CCS 2027 and obtained
his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.