Meet Aras Memisyazici
Aras “Russ” Memisyazici, current student in the VT-MIT program, has been named network architect for the Virginia Cyber Range, an effort led by a consortium of public higher education institutions from across the commonwealth to create a state-of-the-art platform for cybersecurity education.
The newly created Virginia Cyber Range will offer courseware for faculty teaching cybersecurity courses at public colleges and universities across Virginia, as well as cybersecurity training exercises and competitions for high school and college students. The goal of this effort is to revolutionize cybersecurity education within the commonwealth and position Virginia to become a leading source of critical expertise for the nation.
In his new position, Memisyazici will define needs and develop technical strategy for the Virginia Cyber Range. He will establish and lead a team to work on the research, development, and roll-out of the individual exercises and scenarios on a cloud-based infrastructure to further the range’s mission.
"I'm honored to be a part of the effort to build this new educational resource. I look forward to putting together the team and begin building the infrastructure to host cybersecurity exercises for college courses, as well as environments for cybersecurity research and competitions to meet Governor McAuliffe’s vision to make Virginia a leading source of cybersecurity talent," Memisyazici said.
Most recently, Memisyazici was senior systems engineer for the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation (OVPRI). In that role, he supported six sub-departments under the OVPRI umbrella, including the Office of Sponsored Programs and the Office of Export and Secure Research Compliance, as the security architect and lead systems engineer. Memisyazici earned his bachelor's degree in computer science from Radford University and will finish his masters in information technology from Virginia Tech this fall.