Dr. Hibshi’s research area includes usable security, cybersecurity education, security requirements, and expert decision-making. Dr. Hibshi is experienced in conducting ethical research with human subjects and her work has involved collecting empirical data from security experts to improve the security of composable systems. Her work is at the intersection between software engineering, usable security, human factors, and AI.

Dr. Hibshi is the research lead investigator for the picoCTF educational platform. Her work focuses on increasing diversity in capture-the-flag security competitions, improving the user experience when using the platform, and enhancing the educational outcome of cybersecurity CTFs. Her work also includes investigating the challenges facing developers and security experts when working hands-on on security problems. Dr. Hibshi is also investigating usable security and privacy challenges facing the field’s developers, experts, and professionals.

As a cybersecurity educator, Dr. Hibshi also investigates how to improve cybersecurity skills in future engineers. Through the picoCTF platform, Dr. Hibshi studies how to attract more talent from underrepresented groups into the platform, and how to create an educational ramp for complex concepts in security engineering such as blockchain and AI.  

Nicole Newmeyer is currently the Subject Matter Expert in Internet of Things and Container Security in NSA’s Network Security Services organization; she is leading the coordination and development of Container Security measures and implementation guidance to establish Agency Standards for protecting classified information used in containerized applications. 

A graduate of the Agency’s Senior Technical Development Program, she focused on understanding the impact of Internet of Things technologies on NSA missions. Throughout her career, she has held technical leadership positions in both the signals intelligence and cybersecurity missions at NSA, and has led engineering and strategy development efforts to find novel approaches to complex problems and implemented innovative development efforts to solve technical challenges quickly and efficiently.  

She is also the chair for NSA’s Women in Technology group, a component of the Women Employee Resource Group, and is an active advocate, leader, and mentor.

Carolina Zarate has been a long-time competitor in CTF (Capture the Flag) hacking competitions since 2011, and has competed with 6-time DEFCON CTF champion, the Plaid Parliament of Pwning (PPP) since 2014. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science and M.S. in Information Security from Carnegie Mellon University.

Carolina spends time providing opportunities for beginners in cyber security, developing challenges, CTFs, and educational material. Her contributions have extended in the past to picoCTF, the largest CTF geared towards educating high school students.