Alfonso Valdes
Alfonso Valdes is the Managing Director of Smart Grid Technologies at the University of Illinois. In that capacity, he is responsible for a portfolio of diverse research activities, including the Trustworthy Cyber Infrastructure for the Power Grid Center (TCIPG) and the Illinois Center for a Smarter Electric Grid (ICSEG). Valdes was formerly a Senior Computer Scientist in the Computer Sciences Laboratory at SRI International, where he led several projects in information security for clients such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA), the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Energy. His recent research has focused on critical infrastructure systems in the oil & gas and electric sectors. On a recently completed project sponsored by the Department of Energy, he led development of innovative machine-learning and anomaly-based techniques for monitoring process control systems, and oversaw the integration of multiple detection technologies into a correlation framework tailored to such systems. Valdes participated in cyber-security research roadmap efforts for both DHS and DOE. In the DHS Roadmap, he was responsible for coordinating deliberations of leading academic and industry researchers on a number of topics critical to the advancement of cyber-security, and authorship of the corresponding roadmap chapters. He is co-inventor on two patents in cyber-security.