Trusted CI, the National Science Foundation Cybersecurity of Excellence

Principal Investigators and Site Leads

Jim Basney (Director, PI, and Site Lead at UIUC/NCSA)
Kathy Benninger (Lead at CMU/PSC)
Barton Miller (Co-PI and Site Lead at U. Wisc.)
Sean Peisert (Deputy Director, Co-PI, and Site Lead at LBNL)
Scott Russell (IU)
Kelli Shute (Executive Director, Co-PI, and Site Lead at IU)

Additional LBNL Staff

Daniel Arnold
Daniel Gunter
Drew Paine
Damian Rouson

LBNL Project Alumni

Reinhard Gentz
Jason R. Lee

Former PIs and Site Leads:

Dana Brunson (Former Co-PI / Lead at Internet2)
Randal Butler (Former Co-PI at UIUC)
James Marsteller (Former Co-PI and Lead at CMU/PSC)
Von Welch (Former PI and Founding Director, IU)

The mission of Trusted CI, the National Science Foundation Cybersecurity of Excellence, is to improve the cybersecurity of NSF computational science and engineering projects, while allowing those projects to focus on their science endeavors.

As the National Science Foundation Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, Trusted CI draws on expertise from multiple internationally recognized institutions, including Indiana University, the University of Illinois, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, and Berkeley Lab. Drawing on this expertise, Trusted CI collaborates with NSF-funded research organizations to focus on addressing the unique cybersecurity challenges faced by such entities. In addition to our leadership team, a world-class Trusted CI Advisory Committee adds its experience and a critical eye to the center’s strategic decision-making.

Berkeley Lab’s roles in Trusted CI has included co-leading the Open Science Cyber Risk Profile (OSCRP) working group – a cross-disciplinary group of computer security professionals and scientific researchers that worked to develop a document designed to help researchers understand the cyber risks to their work. It has also led studies into scientific data integrity, scientific data confidentiality, software assurance in science, the security of operational technology in science, and building security into NSF Major Facilities by design.

This project is supported by award # ACI-1547272, OAC-1920430, and OAC-2241313 from the National Science Foundation’s Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure.

Read more at the Trusted CI web site.

News about from LBNL’s involvement with this center:

Mind the gap: Speaking like a cybersecurity pro,” Science Node, February 10, 2017.

Selected Trusted CI blog posts involving LBNL’s personnel:

Announcing publication of the Operational Technology Procurement Vendor Matrix — Dec. 15, 2023

SAVE THE DATE: Announcing the 2023 NSF Cybersecurity Summit, Oct 24-26, 2023 in Berkeley, CA — Mar. 21, 2023

Registration Open for 3rd HPC Security Workshop at NIST NCCoE — Feb. 3, 2023

Sean Peisert, Publication of the Trusted CI Roadmap for Securing Operational Technology in NSF Scientific Research — Nov. 16, 2022.

Sean Peisert, Open Science Cyber Risk Profile (OSCRP) Updated with Science DMZ, Software Assurance, Operational Technology, and Cloud Computing Elements — Nov. 1, 2022

Sean Peisert, Findings of the 2022 Trusted CI Study on the Security of Operational Technology in NSF Scientific Research — July 15, 2022.

Sean Peisert, Berkeley Lab’s Sean Peisert Tapped to Take on Deputy Director Role — June 28, 2022

Sean Peisert, Announcement of Trusted CI Director Transition — June 27, 2022

Sean Peisert, “Better Scientific Software (BSSw) Helps Promote Trusted CI Guide to Securing Scientific Software,” May 13, 2022.

Elisa Heyman Pignolo, Barton Miller, and Sean Peisert, “Trusted Cyberinfrastructure Evaluation, Guidance, and Programs for Assurance of Scientific Software,” May 13, 2022.

Sean Peisert, “Announcing the 2022 Trusted CI Annual Challenge on Scientific OT/CPS Security,” Jan. 5, 2022.

Sean Peisert, “Publication of the Trusted CI Guide to Securing Scientific Software,” Trusted CI Blog Post, Dec. 14, 2021.

Sean Peiert, “Findings Report of the 2021 Trusted CI Annual Challenge on Software Assurance Published,” Trusted CI Blog Post, Sept. 29, 2021

Sean Peiert, “Trusted CI new co-PIs: Peisert and Shute,” Trusted CI Blog Post, Aug. 3, 2021

Sean Peisert, “Initial Findings of the 2021 Trusted CI Annual Challenge on Software Assurance,” Trusted CI Blog Post, Aug. 3, 2021

Sean Peisert, “Announcing the 2021 Trusted CI Annual Challenge on Software Assurance,” Trusted CI Blog Post, Mar. 30, 2021.

Sean Peisert, “Data Confidentiality Issues and Solutions in Academic Research Computing,” Trusted CI Blog Post, September 10, 2020.

Anurag Shankar, “Trusted CI Completes a Highly Successful Engagement with UC Berkeley,” Trusted CI Blog Post, July 21, 2020.

Sean Peisert, “Fantastic Bits and Why They Flip,” Trusted CI Blog Post, June 23, 2020.

John Zage, “Trusted CI Concludes SLATE Engagement,” Trusted CI Blog Post, January 27, 2020.

John Zage, “Trusted CI begins engagement with SLATE,” Trusted CI Blog Post, September 4, 2019.

Von Welch, “Open Science Cyber Risk Profile publications,” Trusted CI Blog Post, October 10, 2017.

Open Science Cyber Risk Profile Published,” Trusted CI Blog Post, April 3, 2017.

Publications resulting from LBNL’s involvement with Trusted CI:

Andrew Adams, Dan Arnold, Jeannette Dopheide, Ryan Kiser, Mark Krenz, Drew Paine, Sean Peisert, Michael Simpson, and John Zage, “Trusted CI Operational Technology Procurement Vendor Matrix,” Dec. 14, 2023.

Jim Basney, Sean Peisert, Scott Russell, Kelli Shute, Bart Miller, and Kathy Benninger, “A Vision for Securing NSF’s Essential Scientific Cyberinfrastructure - Trusted CI Five-Year Strategic Plan (2024-2029),” August 1, 2023.

Andrew Adams, Emily K. Adams, Dan Gunter, Ryan Kiser, Mark Krenz, Sean Peisert, and John Zage. “Roadmap for Securing Operational Technology in NSF Scientific Research,” Trusted CI Report, November 16 2022.

Emily K. Adams, Daniel Gunter, Ryan Kiser, Mark Krenz, Sean Peisert, Susan Sons, and John Zage, “Findings of the 2022 Trusted CI Study on the Security of Operational Technology in NSF Scientific Research,” Trusted CI Report, July 13, 2022.

Andrew Adams, Kay Avila, Elisa Heymann, Mark Krenz, Jason R. Lee, Barton Miller, and Sean Peisert, “Guide to Securing Scientific Software,” Trusted CI Report, December 14, 2021.

Andrew Adams, Kay Avila, Elisa Heymann, Mark Krenz, Jason R. Lee, Barton Miller, and Sean Peisert, “The State of the Scientific Software World: Findings of the 2021 Trusted CI Software Assurance Annual Challenge Interviews,” Trusted CI Report, September 29, 2021.

Sean Peisert, “An Examination and Survey of Data Confidentiality Issues and Solutions in Academic Research Computing,” Trusted CI Report, September 8, 2020.

Anurag Shankar, Andrew Adams, John Zage, and Sean Peisert, “UC Berkeley Secure Research Data and Compute Platform,” Trusted CI Report, June 20, 2020.

Andrew K. Adams, Christopher Weaver, Jim Basney, Joe Breen, John Zage, Kay Avila, Lincoln Bryant, Mitchell Steinman, Reinhard Gentz, Robert Gardner, Sean Peisert, Shawn McKee, Tom Barton, “Trusted CI SLATE Engagement — Final Report,” Trusted CI Report, January 6 2020.

Reinhard Gentz and Sean Peisert, “An Examination and Survey of Random Bit Flips and Scientific Computing,” Trusted CI Report, December 20, 2019.

Andrew Adams, Kay Avila, Jim Basney, Dana Brunson, Robert Cowles, Jeannette Dopheide, Terry Fleury, Elisa Heymann, Florence Hudson, Craig Jackson, Ryan Kiser, Mark Krenz, Jim Marsteller, Barton P. Miller, Sean Peisert, Scott Russell, Susan Sons, Von Welch, John Zage, “Trusted CI Experiences in Cybersecurity and Service to Open Science,” Proceedings of the Conference on Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC), July 28-August 1, 2019. ACM.

Sean Peisert and Von Welch, “The Open Science Cyber Risk Profile: The Rosetta Stone for Open Science and Cybersecurity,” IEEE Security & Privacy, 15(5), pp. 94–95, Sept./Oct. 2017.

Sean Peisert, Karen Stocks, and Von Welch, “Helping Scientists Understand Research Cyber Risks,” UC IT Blog, September 20, 2017.

Sean Peisert, Von Welch, Andrew Adams, Michael Dopheide, Susan Sons, RuthAnne Bevier, Rich LeDuc, Pascal Meunier, Stephen Schwab, and Karen Stocks, Ilkay Altintas, James Cuff, Reagan Moore, and Warren Raquel, “Open Science Cyber Risk Profile,” February 2017. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7268749

Trusted CI Webinars and Talks involving personnel from LBNL:

Tim Howard (NSF/USAP), Jon Meyer (SIO/CCRV), Craig Risien (OSU/OOI), Chris Romsos (OSU/CCRV), Ezra Van Everbroeck (SIO/CCRV), and Sean Peisert (LBNL/Trusted CI), moderator, “Experiences from SIO (CCRV), OSU (RCRVs), OOI, and USAP in Cybersecure-by-Design Maritime and Polar Design and Construction,” 2023 NSF Cybersecurity Summit, Berkeley, CA, October 26, 2023.

Emily Adams, Ryan Kiser, Mark Krenz, and Sean Peisert, “Trusted CI Study on the Security of Operational Technology in NSF Scientific Research,” 2022 NSF Cybersecurity Summit, Bloomington, IN, October 19, 2022.

Sean Peisert, “Trusted CI Evaluation, Guidance, and Programs for Assurance of Scientific Software,"NITRD MAGIC Meeting, March 2, 2022.

Elisa Heymann, Barton Miller, and Sean Peisert, “Presenting the Results of the Trusted CI Annual Challenge on Software Assurance,” Trusted CI Webinar, February 28, 2022.

Sean Peisert, Andrew Adams, Kay Avila, Elisa Heymann, “Observations on Software Assurance in Scientific Computing,” 2021 NSF Cybersecurity Summit, October 13, 2021.

Jim Basney and Sean Peisert, “Two Community Surveys on Data Integrity Issues in Scientific Computing,” 2020 NSF Cybersecurity Summit for Large Facilities and Cyberinfrastructure, September 24, 2020. (Video | Slides)

Von Welch & Sean Peisert, “Open Science Cyber Risk Profile (OSCRP),” January 2017. (Video | Slides)

More information is available on other Berkeley Lab R&D projects focusing on cybersecurity in general, as well as specifically on cybersecurity for scientific and high-performance computing.