Paulo Costa

Professor and Dept. Chair, Dept of Cybersecurity Engineering

George Mason University

Paulo Costa graduated with honors at the Brazilian Air Force Academy in 1986 and started his ca reer as a fighter pilot, having flown nearly 2000 hours in fighters such as the Brazilian-Italian made AM-X. Later he worked in the Chiefs-of-Staff for eight years as program manager supporting the Air Force research, development, and procurement activates with the aerospace industry and academia.
Prof. Costa research focus encompasses four synergistic components: 1) the primary research focus on probabilistic knowledge representation and reasoning; 2) the extended research on evaluation of un certainty in information fusion; 3) the extended research on safety and security of cyber physical sys tems and 4) the interdisciplinary efforts combining these areas to transition methodological research to practical significance. The latter currently includes establishing the return of investment (ROI) on advanced manufacturing and supply chains, development of ad-hoc intrusion detection systems, safety and security of intelligent transportation systems, cybersecurity experimentation, healthcare au tomation, and cyber-physical security of smart power grids. He has authored more than 180 scientific publications in prestigious conferences and journals spanning artificial intelligence, computer science, information fusion, air transportation, healthcare, and decision analysis. This publication record has achieved interest from the communities involved, as indicated by the metrics commonly used to assess academic impact. For instance, Google Scholar reports 3268 citations, which have generated and i10- index of 81 and an h-index of 28.
He has been awarded with research grants representing a total of 14.7 million dollars through a port folio of agencies that include DARPA, ONR, AFRL, ARO, DOT, DOE, as well as private sponsors in the areas of decision support systems, cybersecurity, and cyber-physical systems. In his capacity as the Director of the C5I Center Dr. Costa has been responsible for a dramatic increase in the institution’s research metrics since he took over. For instance, in 3 years under his leadership the Center has tri pled the number of postdocs and GRA supported, increased the yearly expenditures by 70%, the indi rect earned by 136%, while modernizing the Center’s IT infrastructure and services. He also oversees the exponential growth of the first cyber security engineering degree accredited by ABET in the U.S., while guiding the newly created Cyber Security Engineering Department in its continued path of in novation in academic education. He is an American citizen.

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