Lauren E. Provost

About Lauren E. Provost

Dr. Lauren E. Provost is a Principal Investigator at WebSensing. WebSensing specializes in national security and defense-related single-chip network security solutions leveraging System-On-Chip (SoC) and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) Architectures through High-Level Synthesis (HLS). Dr. Provost specifically focuses on formal methods which are techniques used to model complex systems as mathematical entities. By building a mathematically rigorous model of a complex system, it is possible to verify the system\'s properties in a more consistent and reliable manner. WebSensing\'s defense community customers and partners in include the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USDR & E). WebSensing includes Dr. Stephen Taylor and Dr. Jason Dahlstrom of Dartmouth College\'s Thayer School of Engineering. Dr. Provost is an active member of the NSA Science of Security research group with a focus on formalizing components of ethical hacking procedures. Dr. Provost has served as the Point of Contact for applications for the National Security Agency (NSA)/Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Center for Academic Excellence – Cyber Defense (CAE-CD) designation and is an active member of the CAE community. Dr. Provost\'s most current talk was given at the 2021 NSA HoTSoS Hard Problems session on April 14th, entitled Formal Treatments of Ethical Hacking to Improve Identification of Vulnerabilities in Complex Computing Environments. Her most recent paper, entitled Approaches to Ethical Hacking: A Conceptual Framework for Research, was presented at the 2021 International Conference on Information Systems Security and Privacy (ICISSP), on November 1-2 in San Francisco. Dr. Provost is also the Director of The New England Ethical Hackers Cybersecurity organization, a virtual community for educators and industry. Dr. Provost is involved in multiple computer science initiatives nationally, including advising federal legislators current on cybersecurity breaches such as the most recent Solar Winds and Colonial Pipeline breaches. She has also participated in providing feedback for the NICE cybersecurity workforce framework from an equity lens and serves on the mentorship board for Women in Cybersecurity (WiCys). She recently was named a fellow with Duke University\'s 3C (Cultural Competence in Science Computing) program. LinkedIn DISCLAIMER: Content posted are mine, not those of my employers.

Experience

1. Wicys Mentor

   Women In Cybersecurity Wicys

   Sep 2020 — Present

Education

• University of New Hampshire

  Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Mathematics Education

• The University of Texas at Austin

  Bachelor of Science - BS, Computer Science