In this episode, Justin speaks with Dr. Ashley Podhradsky, Vice President of Research and Economic Development at Dakota State University. Dr. Podhradsky talks about using the FTK Academic Program and how it served as a springboard to expanding into a full-size lab that serves the state of South Dakota, while also benefiting student learning.

Guest & Bio:
Dr. Ashley Podhradsky is the vice president of research and economic development at Dakota State University. She is also a member of the Board of Directors for First Bank and Trust. Her research has been published in the Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law, Journal of Cyber Security, America’s Conference on Information Systems, Hawaii’s International Conference on Systems Science, among others. She has given invited keynotes at several events including the Department of Justice, Google, Penn State, UC Berkeley, among other national, regional and state organizations.

Ashley co-founded CybHER, an effort to increase diversity in cybersecurity. To support the efforts of CybHER, she received grants from the National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, American Association of University Women, and National Center for Women and Information Technology. One notable area of CybHER is the GenCyber Girls in CybHER Security camp, which Ashley is the camp director. Ashley volunteers her time for national and international events such as the IEEE Symposium of Security and Privacy, Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS), and Advances in Security Education (USENIX). Her work was recognized by the EmBe organization when she was selected as the 2017 Young Women of Achievement. Podhradsky is a fellow for New America, a nonpartisan think-tank out of D.C.

Podhradsky received her doctoral degree from Dakota State University where her research focused on cybersecurity models for financial institutions. During her doctoral studies, she was honored with the Anita Borg scholarship from Google. She holds a bachelor's degree in eCommerce and computer security and a master’s degree in information systems.