Michael comes to ESnet’s Cybersecurity group after working as a software engineer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and in the Automated Learning Group at the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana (UIUC). Recently, he has also been an instructor for a data science and machine learning course within the School of Informatics (iSchool).

What brought you to ESnet?
The classes I taught at UIUC were designed around mastery-based learning and evidence-based teaching. I built a framework that instrumented the assignments (similar to observability) so that I could get a good pulse on where students were struggling and where they weren’t. Creating the end-to-end workflows for the students made me realize how much I missed architecting (and building) software. I knew several great ESnet people and it was just perfect timing that the security group had an opening where they were receptive to bringing on someone with a software design background and also enthusiastic about letting me continue climbing the data analytics and machine learning mountain (I’m at the base). I also love that ESnet’s mission enables science.

What’s the most exciting thing happening in your field?
There’s a lot going on and staying current is a challenge. If I had to pick a topic that is ripe for potential (or hype) it’s using blockchain “decentralized ledger” technology (now being used for databases, voting, and electronic currencies), to create applications in digital identity, and remove unnecessary intermediaries from transactions. It seems like there are new application ideas for blockchain every day.

Although I do not know much about cryptocurrency (or its future), the idea of using their decentralized ‘bookkeeping’ architecture for secure transactions with provenance seems intriguing.

What book would you recommend?
I remember reading The Cuckoo’s Egg in high school and it’s one of the books that got me interested in both computer science and security. When I saw this question I remembered that the main character is from LBL! Perhaps the security group will want me to look into an accounting discrepancy?