Dr. Chris Jenkins is a principal cybersecurity research & development staff member in Sandia National Laboratories’ Information Operations Center. During his ten-year tenure as a cybersecurity engineer at Sandia, he has made important contributions to national capabilities. He will receive a Research Leadership Award at the 2022 BEYA STEM Conference this February.

“Dr. Jenkins’ strong record of significant technical contribution to important areas, coupled with his demonstrated commitment to leadership, collaboration, mentoring, communication, and service, make him an excellent candidate for this award,” said Michael J. Burns, associate laboratory director of national security programs.

A contributor to many aspects of cyber-physical and embedded systems cybersecurity, Jenkins has partnered with Purdue University over the last 2 years to determine the strength of the patent-issued moving target defense (MTD) algorithm he created. His work has explored integrating MTD into real-time communication systems employed in space systems and other national security-relevant communications architectures. His current research represents Sandia’s national commitment to space systems and Sandia’s strategic investment in the Science and Technology Advancing Resilience for Contested Space (STARCS) campaign.

Researchers at Sandia launched the seven-year mission campaign in 2019 to develop the science, technology, and architecture needed for autonomous satellite protection systems.