Gedare Bloom, Ph.D, assistant professor in the UCCS Computer Science Department, received a National Science Foundation CAREER award for his research project “Foundations for Real-Time System Security.”
The five-year award will advance research in real-time systems and cybersecurity and increase workforce development necessary to address skills gaps and shortages in the profession. The outcomes of this effort are advancing theory and practice of real-time security to the public benefit by improving the national security posture and enhancing human safety.
The National Science Foundation CAREER award recognizes early-career university faculty with potential to serve as role models in research and education and to lead advances in their field. The awards are highly competitive.
“I am very pleased that NSF has recognized Dr. Bloom with the prestigious CAREER award. Dr. Bloom’s research in real-time systems security is essential as we develop strategies to secure cyber-physical systems and critical infrastructure,” said Don Rabern, dean of the College of Engineering and Applied Science. “Dr. Bloom continues the tradition in the College of Engineering and Applied Science of moving forward research initiatives while preparing our graduates for careers in engineering and computer science.”
The objective of the research is to bring real-time security to the forefront as a research field by thoroughly characterizing the security challenges facing real-time systems and to protect real-time systems from cyberattack. Safety-critical systems, cyber-physical systems (CPS), and critical infrastructure rely upon the correct, safe functioning of the underlying real-time system. Widespread adoption of the successful outcomes of this project will positively impact a broad range of CPS and critical infrastructure assets.
“This project aims to solve problems in a wide range of systems people use every day,” said Bloom. “I will be exploring solutions for security in vehicles like cars and semi-trucks, industrial control systems such as power grids, water plants, and particle accelerators, and space systems including satellites, solar probes, and rovers. I also plan to write a new textbook about real-time system security so that students around the world can benefit from my project’s outcomes.”
Bloom’s research expertise is computer system security with focus on real-time embedded systems and he has published over fifty peer-reviewed articles in these areas. The techniques he applies to solve problems along the hardware-software interface range from computer architecture, computer security, cryptography, operating systems, and real-time analysis. Since 2011, Bloom has been a maintainer for the RTEMS open-source hard real-time operating system. He is an ACM Senior Member and an IEEE Senior Member.
Gedare Bloom received his Ph.D. in computer science from The George Washington University (GWU) in 2013, M.S. in computer science from GWU in 2012, and B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematical Sciences in 2005 from Michigan Technological University. From 2013-2015 he was a Postdoctoral Scholar and Research Scientist at GWU. He was an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Howard University from 2015-2019. Bloom joined the University of Colorado Colorado Springs as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in 2019.
The College of Engineering and Applied Science enrolls more than 1,600 students and offers 12 bachelor’s degrees, two types of master’s degrees with nine options, four doctoral degrees, one undergraduate and seven graduate certificates. The college is a Department of Homeland Security / National Security Agency Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense and works closely with the National Cybersecurity Center and with more than 250 aerospace and defense, information technology and cybersecurity, and engineering organizations in the Pikes Peak region.