UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Anna Squicciarini, Penn State professor of information sciences and technology, has been named Frymoyer Chair in Information Sciences and Technology, effective Dec. 1.
The three-year appointment provides a distinguished faculty member in the College of Information Sciences and Technology with the opportunity to continue and further scholarly excellence through contributions to instruction, research and public service with the intent to foster the use, benefits and effectiveness of information sciences worldwide.
"There is a tremendous need to foster work in cybersecurity,” said Squicciarini. “I am honored to be named Frymoyer Chair and to have this opportunity to leverage my position and further contribute to the field, expanding my research work on user and data privacy while also continuing to mentor talented students at Penn State.”
Endowed in 2000 by the Frymoyer Foundation — which is led by Edward Frymoyer, emeritus member of the College of IST Dean’s Advisory Board and president of Frymoyer Holdings Inc. — the chair was one of the first endowed academic positions created in the then-School of IST. The honor is awarded to professors who have “demonstrated skills and contributed to the interdisciplinary field of information sciences and the teaching thereof through innovative means.”
“Anna is an internationally recognized scholar who has demonstrated success in addressing challenging data privacy and security questions in an increasingly complex and connected world,” said Andrew Sears, dean of the College of IST. “Anna shares the expertise and experience she gains through her interdisciplinary research with the students she guides, mentors and teaches. This appointment is in recognition of her accomplishments to date, and will help to further advance her academic and research portfolio.”
Squicciarini joined the College of IST in 2008 and currently serves as professor-in-charge of the college’s cybersecurity analytics and operations area. Her main research interests include data privacy, access control and system security. Her current work explores security issues in the context of social networks with emphasis on users’ privacy and online deviance. Her teaching activities cover topics in security and database systems.
She is the author or co-author of more than 90 conference papers and journal articles. Her published research has been honored with best paper awards at technical conferences. Her research is currently supported by research awards from funding agencies and industrial support, including an NSF CAREER Award.
Squicciarini regularly serves as a program committee member for many relevant security and privacy conferences, and she is an associate editor for leading journals by the ACM and IEEE.
