Dawn Cappelli

Technical Manager, Enterprise Threat & Vulnerability Management at the CERT Insider Threat Center

Key Responsibilities

Dawn Cappelli, CISSP, is Technical Manager of the Insider Threat Center and the Enterprise Threat and Vulnerability Management team in the CERT Program at Carnegie Mellon University's Software Engineering Institute. Her team’s mission is to assist organizations in improving their security posture and incident response capability by researching technical threat areas; developing information security assessment methods and techniques; and providing information, solutions and training for preventing, detecting, and responding to illicit activity. Her team members are domain experts in insider threat and incident response, and team capabilities include threat analysis and modeling; development of security metrics and assessment methodologies; and creation and delivery of training, courses, and workshops. Dawn has 30 years of experience in software engineering, including programming, technical project management, information security, and research. She is often an invited speaker at national and international venues, is an adjunct professor in Carnegie Mellon’s Heinz College of Public Policy and Management and is currently Vice-Chair for the CERT Computer Security Incident Handler Certification Advisory Board.

Professional Background

Before joining CERT in 2001, Cappelli was the Director of Engineering for the Information Technology Development Center of the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute (CMRI). While with CMRI, she was a technical and program manager for a variety of information networking projects. These projects included the design and development of large-scale databases and Internet-based systems that adhered to data privacy and security requirements, the design and implementation of multi-organizational portals for preparation and response to Weapons of Mass Destruction and collaboration among public health department epidemiologists, and the design and development of a networked media solution for remote collaboration between teachers of children with special needs and consultants. Previously she worked in Computing Services at Carnegie Mellon University where she led several teams in the areas of web application development, database development, and networked media. Cappelli began her career at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in the Information Technology Department at the SEI, managing development of various web and database applications, as well as managing the redesign of the SEI's website by an interdisciplinary project team. Prior to her career at CMU, Cappelli worked for Westinghouse Electric Corporation. While at Westinghouse, she designed and developed systems for nuclear power plants, including real-time graphical user interface systems for power plant operators and Computer-Aided Engineering systems for nuclear plant designers.

Publications (recent or significant)

Education

BS, Computer Science

Certifications/Licenses

CISSP (Certified Information System Security Professional), ISC2

Professional Memberships

RSA Conference 2012
Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) 2012 - Co-chair Insider Threat Mini Track and Insider Threat Symposium
Vice Chair, SEI Computer Security Incident Handler Certification Advisory Board
IEEE
IEEE Computer Society