On March 23, the Tech Dawgs hosted Dr. Nick Rahimi, an assistant professor in SIU’s Information Technology Department. With a research focus on blockchain, cryptography, Internet anti-censorship, adversarial machine learning and software security, Dr. Rahimi provided students with foundational material on machine learning. Discussing the concept of how machines communicate and learn, Rahimi broke down the structures which underlie current machine learning methodologies. He also discussed security concerns within the discipline.
Students were given realistic examples of how machine learning can be applied to basic software such as housing predictions and social media.
The event was held via Zoom and provided a Q&A section after the event.
On February 23rd, Tech Dawgs invited Brian Bowman, A Digital Forensic Expert at Garrett Discovery Inc., to speak with students about the application of tech in the forensic science field. Having come from an IT background and made a transition to digital forensics, Bowman had lots of experience and advice to offer for students interested in the field.
Bowman walked through a large overview of the field of digital forensics which included video, audio, and mobile device analysis among others. Students had a chance to see case studies including how a license was digitally clarified for identification and how audio was extracted from a noisy surrounding. Bowman also explained some of the challenges and nuances that people in his field come across while extracting information. Students were introduced to some technologies used specifically in the digital forensics team.
In addition to learning about the field, students were also given tips on what technologies and concepts a digital forensics member should be familiar with. Bowman gave a rundown of some of the common technologies students may come across such as network and cybersecurity. He also discussed the process of working on a case which included legal work and presentation of evidence.
Students had a chance to ask additional questions after the event including questions about the process of getting a job in digital forensics and the qualifications and security measures needed for such a process.
Due to ongoing COVID-19 regulations and safety protocols, the event was held via Zoom and open to all SIUC students for free.
On October 27th, the Tech Dawgs hosted SIU alum Adam Woodworth, an Associate Senior Software Engineer at Cerner Corporation, to talk about modern web development practices. Most recently working with NodeJS and React, Woodworth covered a variety of context for the development stack. Brief overviews of various methodologies such as the MVC (model-view-controller) model introduced the layers of technology used within a web development project.
Students learned about the different web development stacks such as MEAN (MySQL, Express, Angular, Node) and MERN (MySQL, Express, React, Node). Woodworth also discussed how popular languages and frameworks fit into each one of these stacks.
Students also had the chance to walk through a live demo of a simple React app which created a chat function between users. Woodworth explained some of the key methodologies to MVC in action and introduced students to a few design-oriented APIs for smooth UI development.
Students attended via Zoom and participated in a Q&A session held after the event.
On October 6th, 2020, the Tech Dawgs invited Trenton Taylor to speak to students about some of the technology and concepts he uses for his job at the Federal Reserve Bank in Kansas City. A graduate of SIU from the Department of Information Systems Technology, Taylor currently works on high performance security, specifically relating to one of their computing clusters.
Students were introduced to key principles of cybersecurity on a network, relating to computing clusters, and were able to ask about some of the challenges of ensuring security on such a large infrastructure. Students also had a chance to learn about DevOps routines and walk through a network security analysis prepared by the guest speaker.
Other points discussed included service monitoring on a cluster and reverse engineering.
Students were able to join via Zoom and the event included a Q&A session after the 50-min event.
