Christopher B. Roberts began his appointment as Auburn University’s 21st president in May 2022.

President Roberts leads the university’s four divisions, including Auburn’s main campus with its more than 31,000 students and 5,500 faculty and staff, as well as Auburn University at Montgomery, the Alabama Cooperative Extension System and the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station, a joint enterprise with Alabama A&M University. Roberts is an accomplished scholar who understands that research and teaching excellence, together with service and public engagement, are at the very heart of the state’s R1 land-, sea- and space-grant institution. As the university’s CEO, he marshals the institution’s $1.54 billion annual budget and vast resources, while spearheading the university’s strategic vision and advancing the Auburn’s ever-growing research enterprise and economic development.

Prior to his presidency, Roberts served as the dean of Auburn’s Samuel Ginn College of Engineering from 2012 to 2022. The college has more than 6,000 students and about 400 faculty and staff members. Roberts was a factor in the success of the university’s Because this is Auburn campaign, which raised $1.2 billion. Under Roberts’ leadership, more than $357 million in donations to the college were made during and since the campaign.

Learn more

View Profile

Visit site

Stanley W. (Stan) Connally Jr. is executive vice president of operations at Southern Company – one of the largest producers of energy in the United States – and chairman, president and chief executive officer of Southern Company Services (SCS).

Connally oversees Southern Company’s systemwide operations, based in Birmingham, Alabama. This includes generation, transmission, engineering and construction services, commercial operations, supply chain management, system planning and environmental affairs, as well as Southern Wholesale Energy and the company’s Southern Linc and Southern Telecom telecommunications businesses. As CEO of SCS, Connally is responsible for the primary shared services activities, administrative functions and budget management for SCS. He is responsible for ensuring the alignment of information technology and operations functions to create strategies that deliver increased value
to customers.

View bio

Puesh Kumar leads DOE’s mission to address cyber, physical, and natural hazards and threats to the U.S. energy infrastructure. Kumar has over 15 years of experience in grid modernization, cybersecurity, and emergency response within the energy sector.

Most recently, Kumar was the principal manager for cybersecurity engineering and risk management at Southern California Edison. There, he led a team that addressed cyber threats to critical infrastructure at one of the largest electric utilities in the United States.

Kumar previously served as director of preparedness and exercises for CESER’s Infrastructure Security and Energy Restoration division and as senior advisor for policy and strategy at CESER. In those capacities, he led the development of national-level policies, strategies, and programs related to energy sector hazards and threats.

Kumar has also held industry positions at the American Public Power Association as director of engineering and operations and at Memphis Light, Gas, and Water as a power systems engineer.

Visit site

Mr Zachary (Zach) Tudor is the associate laboratory director of Idaho National Laboratory’s National and Homeland Security (N&HS) directorate. INL’s N&HS is a major center for national security technology development and demonstration, employing 550 scientists and engineers across $300 million in programs. N&HS is responsible for INL’s Nuclear Nonproliferation, Critical Infrastructure Protection, Defense Systems and Homeland Security missions. These missions include safeguarding and securing vulnerable nuclear material, enhancing the overall security and resilience of the nation’s infrastructure, and providing protective system solutions and heavy manufacturing of armor for national defense. N&HS supports major programs for the Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Intelligence Community.

Tudor was previously a program director in the Computer Science Laboratory at SRI International, where he served as a management and technical resource for operational and research and development cybersecurity programs for government, intelligence and commercial projects. He supported DHS’ Cyber Security Division on projects including the Linking the Oil and Gas Industry to Improve Cybersecurity consortium, and the Industrial Control Systems Joint Working Group. He has served as a member of the (ISC)2 Application Security Advisory Board and the NRC’s Nuclear Cyber Security Working Group, and vice chair of the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection at George Washington University.

Learn more

View profile

Dr. Moe Khaleel, the Associate Laboratory Director for National Security Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), guides the research and development of science-based solutions to counter critical threats to public safety, national defense, energy infrastructure and the economy. Leveraging the broad science foundation at ORNL, he oversees the work of multi-disciplinary research teams with signature capabilities in nuclear and uranium science, high-performance computing, geographic information science, cyber security science and advanced manufacturing.

Most recently, Dr. Khaleel served as ORNL’s Deputy for Projects and interim Deputy for Science and Technology. He previously led ORNL’s Energy & Environmental Sciences Directorate, leading the establishment of the Cybersecurity Manufacturing Innovation Institute, relocation and expansion of the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, stabilization of the Carbon Fiber Technology Facility and establishment of the Grid Research and Integration Center.

Learn more

Visit site

Visit site