CCI presents Sachin Shetty of ODU with 2024 Impact Award

The Commonwealth Cyber Initiative awarded its 2024 Impact Award to Sachin Shetty, a professor at Old Dominion University, for his notable contributions to cybersecurity research. 

Shetty is the executive director for the Center for Secure and Intelligent Critical Systems at the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center and a professor in ODU’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

CCI presented the award at its annual CCI Symposium on April 15 in Richmond, Va.

“Sachin’s dedication to cybersecurity research shows what can be accomplished with focused effort and talent,” said Luiz DaSilva, CCI executive director. “His work in Coastal Virginia is helping make the entire state a leader in cybersecurity. He is showing students that cybersecurity is a large field where they can have real impact.”

Shetty’s research is at the intersection of computer networking, network security, and machine learning. Within the past decade, he has completed large-scale projects with multiple collaborators on various grants and contracts totaling more than $20 million.  

“The mantra for my center is ‘math to marketplace,’ ” Shetty said. “I have been always interested in solving cybersecurity problems that could lead to advances in both the art and practice of cybersecurity. Through the various projects in 5G, cyber risk, and Blockchain, I have been fortunate enough to transition fundamental cybersecurity research to fielded prototypes for defense, (and the) federal and commercial sector.

"Along this journey, I have had the good fortune of partnering with brilliant students, researchers, scientists and engineers from academia, industry and government labs who have helped me manifest my center’s mantra in most of my projects.” 

Notable projects include a $13 million contract funded by the Department of Defense (DOD) to develop a 5G-enabled "smart warehouse" at the Marine Corps Logistics Base (MCLB) in Albany, Ga. Shetty served as the technical lead, collaborating with CCI faculty and the Virginia Tech Applied Research Center to submit multiple proposals.

In addition, his research in areas of Blockchain and Cyber Risk and Resilience Analytics have been transitioned into products used in the federal, defense and commercial sector.

Under Shetty’s leadership as executive director, the Center for Secure and Intelligent Critical Systems is participating in several federally funded Centers of Excellence. He is the site lead on the DoD Cyber Security Center of Excellence, DoD Center of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, Department of Homeland Security National Center of Excellence, the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI), and the Department of Energy, Cyber Resilient Energy Delivery Consortium (CREDC).

Shetty also is leading the Cybersecurity Center for Offshore Wind Energy .His partnership with the Port of Virginia has led to development of secure and privacy preserving 5G platform for safe and secure port operations.

He collaborates with such industry partners as, Sentara Healthcare, Accenture, and Reliability First to transitions research into such commercial products as Cyber Risk Scoring and Mitigation (CRISM) and Bloxure, a blockchain platform for medical device security.

He recently served as a Fulbright Specialist at the University of Iceland, conducting research on critical infrastructure security. His Ph.D. students have gone on to secure tenure track positions at research institutions and research scientist positions at Nokia, Siemens, and the Air Force Research Lab.