He is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering and the Director of Center for Cybersecurity and Digital Forensics at ASU. He is also a Fulton Entrepreneurial Professor. He has authored more than 150 refereed research papers. Prior to joining ASU, he was an Associate Professor of College of Computing and Informatics and Founding Director of Center for Digital Identity and Cyber Defense Research at University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

His research foci include security analytics and big data driven security intelligence, vulnerability and risk management, access control and security architecture for distributed systems, identity and privacy management, cyber crime analysis, security-enhanced computing platforms, and formal models for computer security device. His research has been supported by National Science Foundation, National Security Agency, Department of Defense, Office of Naval Research, Department of Energy, Department of Justice, Allstate, Intel, Bank of America, CISCO, GoDaddy, Hewlett Packard, Google, Microsoft and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

He is currently the information director of ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC) and he is a recipient of US Department of Energy Early Career Principal Investigator Award, Educator of the Year Award from Federal Information Systems Security Educators' Association (FISSEA) and Best Researcher Award from CIDSE. Also, he serves as Associate Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Associate Editor of ACM Transactions on Information and Systems Security and Editorial Board of Computers & Security. He is also the Steering Committee Chair of ACM Symposium on Access Control Models and Technologies and the General Chair of ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security (CCS 2014).

Education

Ph.D. George Mason University, 2000

Research/Areas of Expertise

Security analytics and big data driven security intelligence 
Formal Models for Computer Security
Network and Distributed Systems Security
Vulnerability and Risk Assessment
Cyber Crime Analysis

Honors and Distinctions

• DOE CAREER (Early Career Principal Investigator Award), Department of Energy, 2003
• Educator of the Year Award, Federal Information Systems Security Educators' Association, 2005
• Best Senior Researcher Award, CIDSE, ASU, 2013
• Best Paper Award, ACM CODASPY, 2014
• Editorial Review Board, Journal of Database Management, 2001 onwards
• Information Director, ACM Special Interest Group on Security, Audit and Control (SIGSAC), 2002 onwards
• Associate Editor-in-Chief, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 2010 onwards
• Editorial Board, Computers & Security, 2012 onwards
• Associate Editor, ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, 2011-2014
• Guest Editor, ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, Vol.10, No.1, February 2007
• General Chair, ACM Conference on Computer and Communication Security, 2014
• NSA Award, Detecting and Responding Network-centric Attack through Visual Analysis, 2007 to 2009
• NIJ Award, Examining The Creation, Distribution and Function of Malware On-Line, 2007 to 2009
• NSF Award, Secure Information Sharing in Internet-based Collaborative Applications, 2003 to 2008

Selected Journal Publications

Ziming Zhao, Gail-J. Ahn, and Hongxin Hu, Picture Gesture Authentication: Empirical Analysis, Automated Attacks, and Scheme Evaluation, ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, 2015.

Yiming Jing, Gail-J. Ahn, Ziming Zhao, and Hongxin Hu, Towards Automated Risk Assessment and Mitigation of Mobile Application, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 2014.

Mukesh Singhal, Santosh Chandrasekhar, Ge Tingjian, Ravi Sandhu, Ram Krishnan, Gail-J. Ahn and Elisa Bertino, Collaboration in Multi-Cloud Applications: Framework and Security Issues, IEEE Computer, February, 2013.

Hongxin Hu, Gail-J. Ahn and Jan Jorgense, Multiparty Access Control for On-line Social Networks: Model and Mechanisms, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Vol. 25, No. 7, July 2013.

Hongxin Hu, Gail-J. Ahn and Ketan Kulkarni, Discovery and Resolution of Anomalies in Web Access Control Policies, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, 2013.

Mohamed Shehab, Anna Squicciarini, Gail-J. Ahn, Irini Kokkinou, Access Control for Online Social Networks Third Party Applications, Computers & Security, Elsevier, Vol. 31, No. 8, November 2012.

Gail-J. Ahn, Jing Jin and Mohamed Shehab, Policy-driven Role-based Access Management for Ad-hoc Collaboration, Journal of Computer Security, Vol. 20, 2012.

Hongxin Hu, Gail-J. Ahn and Ketan Kulkarni, Detecting and Resolving Firewall Policy Anomalies,  IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2012.

Ziming Zhao, Hongxin Hu, Gail-J. Ahn and Ruoyu Wuy, Risk-Aware Response for Mitigating MANET Routing Attacks, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Vo.9, No. 2, 2012.

Jing Jin, Gail-J. Ahn, Hongxin Hu, Michael Covington, and Xinwen Zhang, Patient-centric Authorization Framework for Electronic Health Records, Computers & Security, Vol. 30, No. 2-3, Elsevier Science, March-May 2011.

Hassan Takabi, James Joshi, and Gail-J. Ahn, Security and Privacy Challenges in Cloud Computing Environments, IEEE Security and Privacy, November/December 2010.

Karsten Sohr, Michael Drouineaud, Gail-Joon Ahn, and Martin Gogolla, Analyzing and Managing Role-Based Access Control Policies, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Vol. 20, No.7, 2008.

B. Tolone, Gail-Joon Ahn, T. Pai and S. Hong, Access Control in Collaborative Systems, ACM Computing Surveys, Vol. 37, No. 1, ACM, March 2005.

Longhua Zhang, Gail-Joon Ahn and Bill Chu, A Rule-Based Framework for Role-Based Delegation and Revocation, ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, Vol.6, No.3, August 2003.

Gail-Joon Ahn, S. Hong and M. Shin, Reconstructing a Formal Security Model, Information and Software Technology, Vol. 44, No. 11, Elsevier Science, August 2002.

Joon Park, Gail-Joon Ahn and Ravi Sandhu, Secure Attribute Services on the Web, ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, Vol. 4, No. 1, February 2001.

Gail-Joon Ahn and Ravi Sandhu, Role-based Authorization Constraints Specification, ACM Transactions on Information and System Security, pages 207-226, Vol. 3, No. 4, ACM, November 2000.