Faculty Directory

Munish Walther-Puri is a security strategist and risk advisor specializing in cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, and geopolitics. He served as the inaugural Director of Cyber Risk for New York City Cyber Command. His expertise spans cyber strategy, supply chain security, state and local cybersecurity, critical infrastructure incidents, and geopolitical analysis. He has worked with startups, financial institutions, and think tanks, focusing on the intersection of cyber risk, technology, intelligence, and national security. Munish is an adjunct fellow at the Institute for Security & Technology and adjunct faculty member at NYU CGA.

Currently consulting, Mike was the head of cyber security at 2 of Canada's iconic companies, and also served as CIO at one of them. Mike's scope included security of application development, of IT systems, and of global cloud services, as well as compliance for the corporation and customer services.

Tarah Wheeler is an information security executive, AI researcher specializing in natural language processing, social data scientist in international conflict, author, and poker player. She is Chief Security Officer at TPO Group, a cybersecurity consulting firm focused on nation-state incident response, critical infrastructure, and cyber risk. She is a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Board of Directors, where she chairs the Audit Committee, serves on the Governance Committee, and founded the annual EFF DEF CON Poker Tournament.

Justin is a Vice President at In-Q-Tel, a non-profit strategic investor serving the Intelligence Community, where he oversees a portfolio of innovative cybersecurity companies solving complex challenges at the intersection of National Security and Commercial Industry. He has also led research and technical diligence exploration for developmental investments that shape Digital Forensics, Behavioral Analytics, Endpoint Protection, Orchestration and Automation, and Software Assurance early-stage startups.

Jake Williams (aka MalwareJake) is a seasoned security researcher with decades of experience in technology and security. Jake is a former startup founder, former senior SANS instructor and course author, and an intelligence community and military veteran. He loves forensics, incident response, cyber threat intelligence and offensive methodologies. Today, Jake is an IANS faculty member, an independent security consultant, and is performing security-focused research to benefit the broader community. He has had the honor of twice winning the DoD Cyber Crime Center (DC3) annual digital forensics challenge. You may also know Jake from one of his many conference talks, webcasts, media appearances or his postings about cybersecurity.

Jamie is currently a threat researcher at Palo Alto Networks Unit 42, where he helps lead tailored, tactical and strategic intelligence deliveries. Prior to Unit 42, Jamie was a cyber operations engineer for the MITRE Corporation where he led development of MITRE ATT&CK® for Enterprise and worked with amazing people on various other exciting efforts involving security operations and research, mostly focused on adversary emulation and behavior-based detections. 

Jason is the EVP and Chief Information Security Officer at Fidelity Investments. Formerly, he served as the Chief Security Officer at USAA and Global Chief Information Security Officer and CIO of the Cybersecurity & Technology Controls division at JPMorgan Chase. He is an experienced leader with both strong technical skills and wide-ranging risk management experience. Jason served as CISO at US Bancorp where he was responsible for enterprise-wide customer authentication products and provided accountability for all information security controls in the company. Prior to his role at US Bancorp, Jason was the Senior Vice President and Cyber Threat Prevention Services Executive at Bank of America and led a team who provided global information security risk prevention and deterrence services.

Caroline Wong is a seasoned cybersecurity executive with nearly two decades of experience spanning governance, risk, compliance (GRC), penetration testing, executive security leadership, and cybersecurity education. She currently serves as the Cybersecurity Director at Teradata. Caroline’s career includes leadership roles at prominent organizations such as eBay, Zynga, Symantec, Cigital, and Cobalt. Her diverse background enables her to bridge deep technical understanding with executive strategy, making her a trusted advisor and transformative leader in the cybersecurity space.

Josh Woodruff is the Founder and CEO of MassiveScale.AI, where he helps regulated enterprises deploy AI agents with governance that keeps pace with delivery. He created the Agentic Trust Framework, an open Zero Trust governance specification for agentic AI published through the Cloud Security Alliance, and serves as its Founding Chair at CSAI, CSA's nonprofit foundation. He authored "Agentic AI + Zero Trust: A Guide for Business Leaders," with a foreword by Zero Trust creator John Kindervag. Josh is a CSA Research Fellow and co-chairs the CSA Zero Trust Working Group. He has over 30 years of security leadership, from hyperscale platforms at Silicon Valley technology companies to regulated enterprises across financial services, biotech, defense, and critical infrastructure. His background as both CIO and CISO enables him to align advanced technical solutions with strategic business outcomes.

Joe, the co-founder and CEO of Seiso LLC, brings 28+ years of IT and cybersecurity experience to the industry's forefront. At Seiso, a cybersecurity engineering firm based in Pittsburgh, Joe and his team work hands-on with customers, implementing modern security and compliance solutions tailored to their unique needs. His expertise spans information security governance, risk management, compliance, and aligning security programs with industry frameworks like ISO 27001, NIST CSF, and 800-x. Joe's previous roles include enterprise-level CISO positions, overseeing cybersecurity, privacy, business continuity, and physical security. He is also one of the hosts of the monthly podcast, Distilled Security Podcast. 

Philip is senior vice president of an offensive security research group at a multinational, Fortune 500 financial services company. He is a leading expert and thought leader in mainframe cyber security with a special focus on the z/OS platform. Philip has built mainframe security programs for multiple Fortune 100 organizations using both vendor and public toolsets. Philip also develops information security coursework to educate the next generation of practitioners, raises awareness about mainframe security, and encourages more organizations to effectively prioritize their risk profiles.

Ross Young has spent two decades at the forefront of cybersecurity, from CIA officer to enterprise CISO. He’s the co-host of CISO Tradecraft, creator of the OWASP Threat and Safeguard Matrix (TaSM), and a recognized leader who has served as CISO in Residence at Team8, CISO of Caterpillar Financial, instructor at Johns Hopkins University, and divisional CISO at Capital One. Ross also brings over a decade of frontline experience from the CIA, NSA, and the Federal Reserve Board.

Sounil is a member of the IANS Faculty, and has over 30 years of hands-on experience creating, breaking and fixing computer and network systems. He is the creator of the Cyber Defense Matrix and the DIE Triad, guest lectures at Carnegie Mellon, and is a senior fellow at the National Security Institute, and advises many security startups. He’s the former Chief Security Scientist at Bank of America, a recipient of the SANS Institute Lifetime Achievement Award, and a frequent speaker at major information security conferences.

Jon Zeolla is the founder and CEO of Zenable, a tech company that uses a Governance-first, fully automated approach to streamline cloud-native technology adoption and security. Jon aims to eliminate corporate toil and inefficiency by automating governance and simplifying data gathering and analysis. He’s also a founder of Seiso where they partner with tech companies to implement low-friction security and compliance. His work at Seiso earned him the 2021 Start-Up Innovator of the Year Award.