Dr. Kate Labunets
Assistant Professor in the Department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University in the NetherlandsDr. Kate Labunets is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Information and Computing Sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Before joining Utrecht University, she was a cyber security postdoc for the VSNU Digital Society track on Safety and Security and H2020 CYBECO projects at the Delft University of Technology. She holds a PhD in Information and Communication Technology from the University of Trento (Italy) and a Master in Mathematics from Belarussian State University (Minsk, Belarus).
As a researcher, she is passionate about using empirical methods to solve problems in the intersection of cyber security and human factors fields. During her PhD, she studied the effectiveness of existing security methods and whether current security methods are worthy of being adopted. The main goal behind these studies was to help practitioners save time and money in selecting the most appropriate security method among dozens of existing approaches.
As a supervisor, she enjoys bringing out the best in her students and junior colleagues and helping them discover where their strengths lie.
Her research interests: security behaviour, human aspects, cyber risk management, and empirical methods.
Sarah-Jane Madden
Director of Cyber DefenseSarah-Jane, the Director of Cyber Defense at Fortive, brings over 25 years of experience in the technology industry. With a robust background in technical operations and software engineering, she has held roles ranging from developer to CISO. Sarah-Jane is a passionate advocate for a practical approach to security that aligns seamlessly with business objectives.
Her extensive software experience spans more than two decades, covering environments from the most formal to the 'let's fix it in production' type teams. She has consistently championed deliberate application security as a collaborative effort with product management, emphasizing that security does not have to be an overhead.