Securing Research Data: A Workshop on Emerging Practices in Computation and Storage for Sensitive Data

Researchers, computer scientists and data scientists from a range of disciplines are working with increasingly large, multi-dimensional datasets in the context of complex networks and computing infrastructure. Data generated by these advanced applications are often subject to an evolving landscape of protection requirements, due to the involvement of human subjects or critical physical infrastructure. At the same time, collaborative research projects and teams drive demand for large-scale distributed platforms that can move data and compute securely over high-speed networks and cyberinfrastructure. How do we secure the data, the network, and the computer to meet this challenge?

This one-day workshop will convene researchers from a variety of disciplines who are leading these trends through their work in biology and medicine, public health and the social sciences, and other fields. In addition, IT service providers and security architects will describe new services and platforms being developed to provide secure research data management and computation capabilities at scale, while managing challenges of authentication, access control, and privacy protection. We will also present advanced theory on the tradeoffs between engineering systems for complexity and robustness, and how this tradeoff in itself can create fragility.

Attendees will

• Identify and discuss research trends and patterns across domains, especially where large restricted or sensitive data are being mobilized for collaborations among researchers at different sites

• Examine the state of secure research data and compute infrastructure services, design patterns, and supporting capabilities that are providing models for sustainable and scalable solutions

• Discuss infrastructure standards, and share resources, knowledge, and structures for best practices

Featured Speakers

Florence Hudson, Founder & CEO of FDHint. Former Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Internet2.  Keynote: "TIPPSS for Enabling and Securing our Increasingly Connected World" 

David L. Alderson, Professor in Operations Research Department and Director for the Center of Infrastructure Defense at the Naval Postgraduate School.  Keynote: "Managing Complexity in a World of Surprise"

Agenda

8:30 am: Breakfast and registration

9:00 am: Welcome: David Rusting, Chief Information Security Officer at UC Office of the President 

9:15 am: Keynote: "TIPPSS (Trust, Identity, Privacy, Protection, Safety, Security) for Enabling and Securing our Increasingly Connected World", Florence Hudson, Founder and CEO at FDHint, LLC 

10:00 am: Panel 1: Securing your research data: Perspectives from domain scientists

Panel Moderator: Jeffrey Weekley, Director of Cyberinfrastructure and Research Computing, UC Merced

Peter Sudmant, Assistant Professor, Department of Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley 

Matthew Renquist, System Engineer, UC Davis Health 

Rob Currie, Chief Technology Officer, UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute

Pavan Gupta, Research and Cloud Computing Architect, UC San Francisco Center for Digital Health Innovation 

11:00 am: Break 

11:15 am: Keynote: "Managing Complexity in a World of Surprise", David Alderson, Professor of Operations Research, Director of NPS Center for Infrastructure Defense, Naval Postgraduate School

12:00 pm: Lunch 

1:00 pm: Panel 2: Securing your infrastructure in a changing landscape: An engineering perspective

Panel Moderator:

Tolgay Kizilelma, Chief Information Security Officer, UC Merced

Jim Basney, Senior Research Scientist, National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Igor Sfliligoi, Lead Scientific Software Developer and Researcher, San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego

Aleatha Parker-Wood, Machine Learning, and Algorithmic Privacy Lead, Humu

1:45 pm: Panel 3: Security and privacy in practice

Panel Moderator: Chris Hoffman, Associate Director of Research IT; Research, Teaching and Learning Services (RTL); UC Berkeley 

Steve Trush, Research Fellow, Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CTLC), UC Berkeley; Deputy Director of Citizen Clinic at CTLC, UC Berkeley

Andrea Hesse, Academic Divisional Computing Director, Information Technology Services, UC Santa Cruz

Sandeep Chandra, Executive Director of Sherlock Cloud; Director of Health Cyberinfrastructure Division, San Diego Supercomputer Center

Elaine Sedenberg, NSF Graduate Research Fellow & PhD Candidate, UC Berkeley School of Information; Facebook Privacy & Public Policy

2:30 pm: Closing Remarks

Camille Crittenden, Executive Director of CITRIS and the Banatao Institute; co-founder of CITRIS Policy Lab and the Women in Technology Initiative at UC.

3:00 pm: Adjourn

Additional Speakers to be announced  

Sponsors:

• CITRIS and the Banatao Institute

• Science Engagement Team of the Pacific Research Platform (NSF Project #ACI-1541349)

• Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity, UC Berkeley

Program committee:

• Camille Crittenden, CITRIS and the Banatao Institute

• Tom DeFanti, UC San Diego, Qualcomm Institute, Calit2

• Chris Hoffman, UC Berkeley 

• Jeff Weekley, UC Merced

• Mark Yashar, CITRIS, UC Berkeley

Lodging:  

Nearby Hotels (all hotels are within three miles of the venue): 

• Biltmore Hotel & Suites
  

• Embassy Suites by Hilton  

• Holiday Inn Express & Suites Santa Clara

• Santa Clara Marriott

Contact: 

Mark Yashar, UC Berkeley, myashar@berkeley.edu