Chad Williams

Dr. Chad Williams is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science and the Point of Contact for Central Connecticut State University’s Cybersecurity Center. He also serves as co-coordinator of the university’s Cybersecurity B.S. and M.S. programs. Central is designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) and Cyber Defense (CAE-CD) by the National Security Agency’s National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C) program.

Dr. Williams earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2010, where his research focused on privacy-preserving machine learning and data mining algorithms for modeling and projecting individual activity patterns. He also holds an M.S. in Computer Science from DePaul University, where he researched detection methods for profile injection attacks in collaborative recommender systems.

Dr. Williams brings extensive professional experience in software engineering and cybersecurity from his work as a technical architect and project manager in the financial services sector, where he led the design and development of secure systems for Fortune 500 companies in banking, insurance, and capital markets.

He has taught a wide range of computer science, software engineering, and cybersecurity courses and has developed 11 courses across these areas. He co-created the Cybersecurity B.S. program, which was recognized by the NSA for its validated Programs of Study in Cyber Operations and Cyber Defense.

Dr. Williams has secured over $1.1 million in external funding as principal investigator or co-principal investigator and has been a semi-finalist for the Excellence in Teaching Award three times. His research interests include applications of machine learning and data mining in cybersecurity, intrusion detection, software engineering, and computer science education.