Funding Opportunity: Advanced Computing in South America

Abstract: The U.S. Army Research Lab initiated a new opportunity, beginning in 2016, to provide support and funding on the topic of Advanced Computing in South America. This opportunity is a result of the U.S. Army Research Lab’s open campus initiative, a realization that today’s research challenges are too difficult and complex for any one laboratory or group of people to solve alone. There is a need for both additional resources and novel ideas to be applied to these modern challenges. Thus the goal is to enable engagement and collaboration between U.S. Army and external researchers. The specific topic made available in South America focuses on exploring new advances in computing design, algorithms, and techniques. Specifically, novel computing capabilities are needed to support future data analysis needs with enhanced security and situational awareness built in from design. These new advances must be solidly grounded in theory and scientific underpinnings and not incorporate adhoc development, integration, or studies. More details in the attached file .

Bio: Dr. Erbacher is a Program Manager for the U.S. Army Research Office, a directorate of the Army Research Laboratory, focused on Advanced Computing. Through this interdisciplinary position, Dr. Erbacher is increasing U.S. Army outreach to South America through Extramural research projects. Prior to his current position, Dr. Erbacher was a computer scientist performing cyber security research at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) in Adelphi, MD. At ARL, Dr. Erbacher led research in cyber detection and cognitive foundations of cyber analysts and continues to collaborate on research in these areas. Dr. Erbacher also demonstrated his leadership as cooperative agreement manager (CAM) for the Science for Cyber cooperative agreement, Contracting Officer Representative (COR) for a Phase II SBIR on “Novel Detection Mechanisms for Advanced Persistent Threat”, and COR for the Applied Research and Experimentation Partner (AR&EP) contract; AR&EP is the industrial partner for the Cyber CRA, a large-scale multi-university collaborative research alliance focused on cyber security. Dr. Erbacher is heavily involved in the international community participating in “The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP), a five-eye focused research cooperation program, and NATO IST-108 (Cyber Defense Situational Awareness). Dr. Erbacher acquired over ten years of professional academic experience prior to joining ARL at the University of Idaho, University at Albany, and Utah State University. Dr. Erbacher has been heavily involved in conference and journal organization including: associate editor of the Journal of Electronic Imaging, Chair of the SPIE Conference on Visualization and Data Analysis, steering committee member for the SPIE Conference on Visualization and Data Analysis, general chair of the Workshops on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensics Engineering, steering committee member for the Workshops on Systematic Approaches to Digital Forensics Engineering, and a member of numerous program committees. Dr. Erbacher has over 90 publications. He received his BS in Computer Science from the University of Lowell in 1991 and his MS and ScD degrees in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell in 1993 and 1998, respectively.

Dr. Erbacher’s research interests lie in digital forensics, situational awareness, computer security, information assurance, intrusion detection, visualization, cyber-terrorism, and cyber command and control.