Guest Lecture: Software Engineering: Through the Eyes of a Hacker, Academic, Employee, and CEO

Guest Speaker: Dr. Chad Spensky

Time: Wednesday, Apr 20, 2022. 2:30pm - 3:45pm Central.

Location: Zoom link is posted on Piazza.

For CS4278/5278 students (only apply to students in Dr. Yu Huang's session), you are required to change your Zoom username to "$VUID-$NAME-CS4278" (e.g., huany47-Yu Huang-CS4278).

Abstract

It took me far too long to figure out how important software engineering was in my career. Had I embraced the field and it's practices earlier, I would have saved myself from numerous headaches, uncountable bugs, and got all of my work done significantly faster. In this talk, I will attempt to stress the importance of sound software engineering, regardless of your career path. I will share personal anecdotes of how being a good software engineer has helped my career and how my novice self would have benefited. Through the lecture we will dive into the hacking world, learn how to get a patch submitted to the Linux Kernel, explore academic research, and peek at the commercial sector from both an employee and manager's point of view. Hopefully, these stories will inspire you to change the way you write code and set you up for a happy, productive career as a computer scientist.

About Dr. Chad Spensky

Chad is a computer security researcher, entrepreneur, and educator who is passionate about using technology to make people’s lives easier and their digital systems more secure. He is currently the CEO of Allthenticate, a company that is revolutionizing authentication by offering a single smartphone-based solution for both physical access control and digital authentication. Chad has over 12 years of research experience and has numerous academic publications in top conferences. Formerly, he was a member of the technical research staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, where he helped them solve some of the Department of Defense's toughest cyber-security problems. Chad received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and is also a recipient of the prestigious IBM Ph.D. Fellowship. In addition to his academic credentials, Chad is a lifetime hacker. His hacking career started in his teenage years and has taken him to compete in some of the world's best capture the flag tournaments around the world as a member of the Shellphish hacking team.