Digital Forensics

Parnian Najafi

Title: Adjunct Professor

Groups: Faculty Bio Page

Parnian Najafi is an accomplished cybersecurity professional with extensive expertise spanning both academia and industry. She currently serves as the Cybersecurity Frontline Services function lead at Google, where she manages and leads a team of security engineers providing cyber intrusion investigation support and threat intelligence across the Americas. Her passion for cybersecurity also extends to academia, where she contributes as an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University. In this role, she teaches malware reverse engineering, develops hands-on curricula, and leads workshops focused on best practices in the field.

Previously, she held leadership roles at Mandiant (part of Google Cloud), serving as the Mandiant Archeology Manager. There, she leveraged her deep expertise to contribute to security analysis and threat intelligence efforts. Prior to that, she spent over seven years at FireEye as a Managing Principal Analyst and Senior Cybersecurity Analyst, where she specialized in analyzing the tactics, techniques, and procedures used by threat actors and their evolution, as well as assessing threats to critical infrastructure, IoT devices, and vehicles.

Her academic background includes a notable tenure as a Research Collaborator at the NIH, where she explored the application of machine learning techniques to better understand human brain cognition. Additionally, Najafi worked with General Motors, designing and building penetration testing labs focused on vehicle security, particularly for embedded ECUs.

Earlier in her career, she taught undergraduate and graduate courses in programming, information security, and statistics at the University of South Carolina, George Mason University, and the University of Malaya. She also conducted research on embedded systems and vehicle security as a Research Assistant at George Mason University. With a unique blend of practical experience and academic insight, Parnian Najafi continues to push the boundaries of cybersecurity while educating, mentoring, and shaping the next generation of professionals in the field.

Credentials:

PhD in Information Technology, George Mason University

Courses:
DFOR 761 – Malware Reverse Engineering

Kafi Hassan

Title: Adjunct Professor

Groups: Faculty Bio Page

Dr. Hassan has been working for Sprint Corporation in Reston, Virginia since 2006. He is a Senior Technology Development Engineer in the Network Innovation and Architecture team. From 1995 to 2006, he worked as a Member of Technical Staff at Bell Laboratories at Whippany, New Jersey, doing research and development in design and analysis of communication systems.

Dr. Hassan’s current research interest include computer forensics, intrusion detection systems, lawful surveillance systems, high-performance network optimization algorithms, network architectures and resource management, evolutionary computation and mobile applications.

Dr. Hassan is the current Chair of the IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) Northern Virginia Chapter.

Credentials:
Ph.D. Electrical Engineering, Graduate Center of City University of New York
BS and MS Electrical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Courses:
Operations of Intrusion Detection and Forensics

 [email protected]

GTA – DFOR

Title: GTA - DFOR/TCOM

Groups: Faculty Bio Page, Faculty Homepage

Arshiya (pronunciation: Ar-shee-yuh) is a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Digital Forensics program at George Mason University, where she is currently pursuing her Master’s degree. 

Before joining GMU to learn the art of forensics and cyber response, Arshiya worked as a cybersecurity consultant providing technical support and implementing niche security tools such as Vulnerability Management, Threat Intelligence and Automation. Her experience extends over various sectors including oil & as, government, telecom and BFSI. With over 5 years of experience in this field, she has gained knowledge of multiple operating systems, programming languages and networking concepts which she hopes to use to support the Digital Forensics community at GMU.

Credentials

Bachelor of Engineering in Computer Science – Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, Dubai Campus

Certified Ethical Hacker certification

Fall 2024 Office hours:

  • Tuesday(s): 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM(In person in room 3702/Hybrid)
  • Thursday(s): 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM (Online w/ Zoom)

[email protected]

Zoom link: Launch Meeting – Zoom

David Sigel

Tahir Khan

Title: Adjunct Professor

Groups: Faculty Bio Page

Mr. Khan has over twenty years of experience in the Information Security field. Mr. Khan is currently the Chief Information Security Officer of Sensity Systems and an advisor of a startup focusing on identity management and authentication. Previously he was the Chief Information Security Officer for a private financial services company managing the incident response, fraud detection and information security teams as well as research in the information security arena. Mr. Khan spent more than a decade at Northrop Grumman where he served various federal agencies in information security and network operations. Mr. Khan’s current hobbies are mobile application analysis, mobile application reverse engineering and researching wireless vulnerabilities.

Credentials:
MS Computer Forensics – George Mason University

Courses:
Penetration Testing Forensics, Mobile Application Analysis and Forensics, Anti Forensics
Penetration Test Comp Forensics (Fall)
Anti-Forensics (Fall)
Mobile Application/Forensic Analysis (Spring)

T. Roy

Title: Adjunct Professor

Groups: Faculty Bio Page

T.Roy is the founder and president of CodeMachine. He spends most of his time on security research, reverse engineering, software development, and training. He holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Engineering and has taken many products from their infancy all the way through to commercial success. He has spent more than a decade working on security products like host intrusion prevention, network firewalls, behavioral anti-malware, document security, and data leak prevention systems. He has also worked on the offensive side of security for the government and defense industry.

He has been delivering training courses to companies all over the world, has taught Microsoft’s own engineers and has received many instructor recognition awards. He has an innate talent for taking complex concepts and explaining them in a lucid manner. Through the courses he teaches, he shares the knowledge he has acquired through years of hands-on experience.

Credentials:
MS in Computer Engineering

Courses:
Kernel Forensics and Analysis

Michael Robinson

Title: Adjunct Professor

Groups: Faculty Bio Page

Michael Robinson is a Security Engineer and Incident Manager at Google, where he manages the response to security and privacy incidents. He specializes in computer forensics, mobile device forensics, and intrusion analysis. Prior to joining Google, Michael was a senior cyber threat analyst and digital forensic examiner for a large international company. He was a computer and cell phone forensic analyst working with various agencies in the U.S. Intelligence Community. He was the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of the Department of Defense’s Business Transformation Agency. As the CIO he oversaw all IT and Information Assurance operations for the agency, including forensic examinations of computers and mobile devices. Michael was the Program Coordinator and Adjunct Professor for Stevenson University’s Master of Science in Cyber Forensics, where he was the recipient of the Rose Dawson Award for outstanding adjunct faculty member of the year.

Credentials:
MS in Computer Forensics, Stevenson University
MS in Information Technology/Information Assurance, University of Maryland
BS in Chemical Engineering, Drexel University
Graduate Certificate in Applied Intelligence, Mercyhurst University

Courses:
Incident Response Forensics
Mobile Device Forensics

Kristi Horton

Joseph C. Opacki

Title: Adjunct Professor

Groups: Faculty Bio Page

Mr. Opacki is a career cybersecurity professional with specialization in malware reverse engineering, computer intrusion investigation, security research, and threat intelligence. He has been active in academia working as an Adjunct Professor for many years in the George Mason University Master of Computer Forensics program and has been a part of the Cybersecurity Curriculum Advisory Council (CCAC) at University of Maryland University College. Before his career in the private sector, Mr. Opacki was the malware reverse engineering Subject Matter Expert (SME) and the Technical Director of advanced digital forensics in the Operational Technology Division at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 2011, Mr. Opacki was awarded the FBI Director’s Award of Excellence for Outstanding Technical Advancement and in 2012 he was awarded the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s Science and Technology Team Award; both for his work in enterprise-level malware investigative triage. Mr. Opacki holds a Masters of Science in Information Technology from the Virginia Polytechnic and State University as well as a Bachelors of Individualized Study from George Mason University.

Credentials:
MS in Information Technology.
Bachelor of Individualized Study, Multimedia Software Design

Courses:
Malware Reverse Engineering

John J. Larkin

Title: Adjunct Professor

Groups: Faculty Bio Page

John Larkin leads an innovative team of intelligence analysts and network security experts in developing cyber threat indicators, warnings, and predictive analysis to protect global information infrastructure against external and internal threat.

Mr. Larkin has 26 years of experience in the technology industry and has extensive expertise in working with government and private sector entities. He has consulted and developed guidance to ensure systems reliability and accessibility and to prevent and defend against unauthorized access to networks, application systems, and data.

John received his Bachelor’s Degree in Information Technology Security Management and his Master’s of Science in IT Management from George Mason University. He is also a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Certified Chief Information Officer (CIO), and Project Management Professional (PMP).

Credentials:
MS in IT Management, George Mason University
BS in IT Security Management, George Mason University
CIO, CISSP, PMP, A+

Courses:
Digital Media Forensics