Computer Scientist Receives
Prestigious Degree From University of Bristol

Computer science professor Bhavani Thuraisingham recently received the higher doctorate degree of doctor of engineering from her alma mater, Britain's University of Bristol.

The degree recognizes Thuraisingham's large body of influential published research in the field of secure data management over the past 25 years.

"Higher doctorates are a higher tier of research doctorates which may be awarded on the basis of a formally submitted substantial body of published original research of a very high standard  or on an honorary basis...when a university wishes to formally recognize an individual's achievements and contributions to a particular field," according to university regulations.

ThuraisinghamThuraisingham is the Louis Beercherl Jr. Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas

Her research in secure data management began in the mid-1980s while she was at Honeywell Inc. working on an AFRL contract to design the Lock Data Views System. She continued her research in data security for AFRL, SPAWAR, CECOM and NSA while at the MITRE Corp., designing and developing secure distributed data management systems and real-time systems. She is now conducting research on both assured information sharing as well as on assured cloud computing for AFOSR and NSF. Her thesis for doctor of engineering included her publications on sub-topics such as multilevel secure data management, secure real-time data management, secure semantic Web and Web services, and data mining for malware detection.

The University of Bristol is continually rated among the top 10 universities in the United Kingdom and among the top 50 universities in the world, according to Times of London rankings. Several university alumni have received Nobel Prizes, including Paul Dirac and Sir Neville Mott, both for physics. In addition to Thuraisingham's degree, the university also awarded an honorary doctor of engineering degree to an alumnus in mechanical engineering, Ben Morris, who received both an Oscar and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for visual effects in 2008.

Thuraisingham joined UT Dallas after spending 16 years at MITRE, including three years as a National Science Foundation program director. At UT Dallas she established the Cyber Security Research Center, and her team of six professors has received many funding awards, including a DoD MURI, multiple NSF CAREER Awards, an AFOSR YIP and an NSF SFS. In addition to fundamental research in cyber security, including work on inline reference monitors, the team focuses on interdisciplinary research in cyber security and works closely with the university's School of Management and School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences in areas such as risk- and cost-based security and incentive-based information sharing.