Benjamin Dierker
Benjamin Dierker is Executive Director of the Alliance for Innovation and Infrastructure (Aii), a nonprofit think tank focused on improving the safety, efficiency, and resilience of America’s infrastructure. He works across research, policy, and partnership development, engaging leaders from industry, government, and academia on infrastructure challenges that cut across sectors.
His work has focused on issues including damage prevention, infrastructure resilience, industrial innovation, and the governance of complex systems. Through Aii, he helps advance practical, nonpartisan ideas that connect long-term public needs with real-world operational and policy considerations.
Benjamin is the author of Holding Back Disaster: Protecting Lives and Infrastructure Through Excavation Damage Prevention, published by Routledge.
Cascading Risk in a Connected Texas Sector: Vulnerabilities, Supply Chains, and Resilience
Speakers
Dr. Narasimha Shashidhar
Dr. Narasimha Shashidhar received his Bachelor of Engineering in Electronics and Communication Engineering from The University of Madras in 2001, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from The University of Connecticut in 2004 and 2010, respectively. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX. His research interests include Digital Forensics, Information Assurance, and computing education. He was a part of the Voting Technology and Research Center (VoTeR) at the University of Connecticut where he advised the State of CT on the security and deployment of electronic voting machines. He has over 50 conference/journal publications and also serves on the editorial advisory/review board and the Technical Program Committee (TPC) of a number of books, journals, and conferences. He is currently serving as a commissioner on the ABET Computing Accreditation Commission (CAC) commission. As a senior volunteer with ABET, he provides leadership and oversight for the accreditation of computing and related programs at institutions worldwide. He conducts program evaluations, in an effort to ensure criteria compliance, and uphold standards in computer science, information systems, and related fields.