Blair Taylor

Biography

Dr. Blair Taylor is Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary and Innovation Cybersecurity (Cyber4All) at Towson University. Dr Taylor is an award-winning educator with 20+ years’ experience in academia. She is a national expert in cybersecurity education and curriculum development and worked with NSA’s College of Cyber as a Subject Matter Expert on long-term strategies to increase the pipeline of qualified students and build the nations’ cyber workforce. 

As an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson University, she has received over $12 million of external funding. Her projects include Security Injections @ Towson, which provides security modules for integrating security across the curriculum and is a national model for teaching secure coding to introductory programming students, and SPLASH, which offers Secure Programming Logic for college credit to high school girls. 

Dr. Taylor has received the University System of Maryland Regents Award for Teaching, the Fisher College of Science and Mathematics Outstanding Faculty Award, the Business Outreach Award and has been recognized as one of 5O Women to Watch by the Baltimore Sun Magazine and one of Maryland’s top female tech leaders by MDBIZNews. She holds a B.A. in Mathematical Science and an M.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and a doctorate in Applied Information Technology from Towson University. 

Additionally, Dr. Taylor is the Co-Executive Director and Co-Founder of SecurEd (www.secured.team), a not-for-profit startup organization focused on helping academic institutions build a cyber-ready workforce.

Funded Grants:

Co-PI, “Cyber4All: An Interdisciplinary Cybersecurity Minor for all Undergraduates,” Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), 2015, $280,706, 2015-2017.

PI, “GenCyber SPLASH: Secure programming Logic Aimed at Students in High School”, Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), 2014, $280,706, 2014-2015.

PI, “Balancing Privacy and Social Media”,  Funded by: Intel Corporation, 2014, $10,000.

PI, “CyberWorkshops: Resources and, Strategies, and Support for Teaching Cybersecurity in Computer Science Courses (CReST),” Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), 2014, $549,942 ($127,025 at TU), 2014-2016.

PI, “CyberSTARS SPLASH: Secure programming Logic Aimed at Students in High School”, Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), 2013, $195,000, 2013-2014.

PI, “Programming Logic Aimed at Students in High School”, Funded by: Department of Defense (DOD), 2012, $36,000, 2012-2013

Co-PI, “Security Injections for CSO, CS1, and CS2:  Promoting Responsible Coding and Building a Community of Security Ambassadors,” Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), 2012, $451,879, 2012-2015

Co-PI, “Scholarship for Service at Towson University,” Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), 2012, $2,093,834, 2012-2016

PI, “Building Security In: Injecting Security throughout the Undergraduate Computing Curriculum,” Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), 2008, $399,511, 2008-2011

Selected Publications and Presentations:

Siraj, A., B. Taylor, S. Kaza, S. Ghafoor (2015), “Integrating Security in the Computer Science Curriculum,” ACM Inroads, 6(2), pp 77-81

Taylor, B., Kaza, S., Siraj, A., Ghafoor, S. (2015), “CReST Workshop: Teaching Add-On Security Modules in Computing Curriculum,” Women in Cybersecurity Conference, Atlanta, GA

Raina, S., Kaza, S. , Taylor, B. (2014), “Segmented and Interactive Modules for Teaching Secure Coding: A Pilot Study,” International Conference on e-Learning e-Education and Online Training(ELeOt), Bethesda, MD

Taylor, B. and Kaza, S. (2014), “Teaching Secure Coding in Introductory Programming Courses,” The 18th Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education (CISSE), San Diego, CA

Taylor, B., Kaza, S., Hawthorne, E., (2014), “Introducing Secure Coding in CS0, CS1, and CS2,” ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2014), Atlanta, GA, ACM Press

Nance, K and Taylor, B. (2012), Teaching High School Students to Code Responsibly, Proceedings of the 16th Colloquium for Information Systems Security Education (CISSE), Lake Buena Vista, FL.

Perez, L, Cooper, S., Hawthorne, E., Wetzel, S., Taylor, B., et al. (2011), Information assurance education in two- and four-year institutions, Proceedings of the 16th annual conference reports on Innovation and technology in computer science education - working group reports (ITiCSE), Darmstadt, Germany

Research:

Co-PI, "Cyber4All: An Interdisciplinary Cybersecurity Minor for All Undergraduates", Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), $288,000, 2015-2017.

PI, "GenCyber SPLASH: Secure programming Logic Aimed at Students in High School,” Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), $40,000, 2014-2015.

 PI, “Balancing Privacy and Social Media,” Funded by: Intel Corporation, $10,000. 2014-2017.

Co-PI, "Collaborative Research:  CyberWorkshops: Resources and Strategies for Teaching Cybersecurity in Computer Science (CReST),” Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), $549,942 ($127,028 at TU). 2014-2016.

PI, "GenCyber SPLASH: Secure programming Logic Aimed at Students in High School,” Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), $95,000, 2013-2014.

Co-PI, “Security Injections for CS0, CS1, and CS2: Promoting Responsible Coding and Building a Community of Security Ambassadors”, Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), $451,879, 2012-2015.  

Co-PI, “Cybercorps: Scholarship for Service”, Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), $2,100,000, 2012-2017.

Co-PI, “Programming Logic Course with Secure Coding for High School Girls”, Funded by:  Department of Defense (DOD), – Information Assurance Scholarship Program, Capacity Building, $35,831, 2012-2013.

PI, “Building Security In: Injecting Security throughout the Undergraduate Computing Curriculum”, Funded by: National Science Foundation (NSF), $399,511,  2008-2012.