Updated: June 11, 2007

About Parisa and Her Recent Accomplishments
Parisa Tabriz is currently a first-year graduate student in the computer science master’s program at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, and plans to pursue a Ph.D. in the future. Her interest area centers around computer security, with specific focus on network and system security and privacy. She interned at Sandia/CA in the summer of 2005, working under the mentorship of Steve Hurd in the Center for Cyber Defenders (CCD) institute.

Parisa was recently selected as a recipient of the 2006 Google Anita Borg Scholarship. In addition to this honor, Parisa, along with her CCD collaborators, successfully submitted a paper to the 2006 USENIX Security Symposium.

As a computer science student, it’s no surprise that Parisa spends a lot of her free time in front of a computer; however, she does admit to catching a little sun every month or so. Check out Parisa’s 2005 spotlight to learn more about her.

About the Scholarship
The Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship honors the legacy of Dr. Anita Borg (1949-2003) and her impact on furthering women’s education and their careers, particularly in the fields of computer science and information technology. The scholarship is awarded to female undergraduate and graduate students completing degrees in computer science or related fields during the 2006-2007 academic year. Winners were selected based on academic performance, responses to essay questions, and letters of recommendation. There were 19 undergraduate and graduate winners this year who received $10,000 cash awards, along with 28 highly qualified finalists who received $1,000 awards. See a complete list of this year’s winners.

Parisa joins three former CCD interns—Rose Yao, Kami Vaniea, and Amanda Stephano—as past recipients of this distinguished award. “It was a huge honor to receive the award among so many very qualified women in computing fields and the scholarship will help to offset costs during the school year next fall,” says Parisa.

About the Conference and Paper
USENIX, the Advanced Computing Systems Association, will sponsor the 15th annual Security Symposium in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on July 31 – August 4, 2006. Parisa and her CCD collaborators submitted the paper, “Passive Data-Link Layer 802.11 Wireless Device Driver Fingerprinting.”

About Her Work at Sandia
Parisa worked on two projects last summer. One project involved writing a tool to detect “stepping stone” attacks in a network. (“Stepping stone” attacks occur when an attacker compromises host machines before eventually reaching their target.) The tool aimed to detect an attack and discover the path used by the intruder. Her other project involved wireless technology, specifically being able to fingerprint a computer’s wireless card and driver by monitoring the wireless traffic it produces in a network.

Congratulations, Parisa!