Veena Krish, a computer science PhD candidate, is the winner of the John Marburger III Fellowship for Science, Engineering and Mathematics. The fellowship, which is an endowment made in the memory of Dr. John H. Marburger III a former president of Stony Brook University, provides funding support for women undertaking advanced graduate study in the physical sciences, engineering, or mathematics.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a BSE and MSE in bioengineering, working as a data scientist while co-founding a medical device start-up, Veena developed an interest in the security implications of emerging medical technologies. Her doctoral research spans security, formal verification, machine learning and cyber-physical systems, specifically focusing on understanding and improving the worst-case behavior of complex, safety-critical. control systems and assessing the vulnerabilities of these systems in the real world. Beyond Veena’s research, she is the chair of WPhD, a campus organization which supports women PhD students studying computer science. Through this group, she helps to build a community of scholars who can support and encourage each other in their academic and professional environment.

Professor Amir Rahmati describes Veena as a strong researcher and a leader with exceptional analytical and problem-solving skills. Samir Das, the department chair of computer science congratulated Veena on this “well-deserved honor” which was only previously given to one other computer science student, Shika Singh, in 2017. This summer Veena will be working in Baltimore, Maryland as a researcher specializing in medical device security.