Rob Cunningham

As Vice Chancellor for Research Infrastructure at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Robert Cunningham is responsible for the strategic leadership of the University's research infrastructure and directs special initiatives. He focuses on the effective operation, financial stability and future growth opportunities of Pitt research platforms. Cunningham has broad experience across STEM, cyber science, physical science and neuroscience, as well as leading enterprise-scale teams of faculty and staff. His research has explored machine learning, digital image processing, computer intrusion detection, systems security and privacy, and software engineering, with applications to satellites and constellations. Cunningham has patented technology, presented and published widely, and chaired the IEEE Cybersecurity Initiative. He is a Fellow of the IEEE.

Ph.D., Cognitive and Neural Systems, Boston University
M.S., Computer Engineering, Boston University
ScB., Electrical Engineering, Brown University

Esswein, R., Bayer, Q., Mergendahl, S., Ruffley, J., Abdelhakim, M., & Cunningham, R.K. (2026). Constellation Parameters for Minimizing Propagation Delay over LEO Inter-Satellite Links. IEEE Transactions on Networking, PP(99), 1.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/ton.2026.3661441.
Vasquez, B., DeRicco, J., Yates, B.J., & Cunningham, R.K. (2025). AI for IACUC: Accurate Initial Assessment of Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee Protocols. In bioRxiv. doi: 10.1101/2025.08.22.671834.
Vasquez, B., DeRicco, J., Yates, B.J., & Cunningham, R.K. (2025). Ethical, robust and accurate use of AI in animal research. Lab Anim (NY), 54(12), 335-337.Springer Nature. doi: 10.1038/s41684-025-01649-7.
Skirpan, M., Oates, M., Byrne, D., Cunningham, R., & Cranor, L.F. (2022). Is a Privacy Crisis Experienced, a Privacy Crisis Avoided?. COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM, 65(3), 26-29.
Cunningham, R., Carleton, A.D., Longstaff, T., & Shull, F.J. (2021). A Research Road Map for Building Secure and Resilient Software-Intensive Systems. IEEE SECURITY & PRIVACY, 19(6), 8-14.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/MSEC.2021.3105876.
Ruoti, S., Kaiser, B., Yerukhimovich, A., Clark, J., & Cunningham, R. (2020). Blockchain Technology: What Is It Good For?. COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM, 63(1), 46-53.Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3369752.
Shay, R., Blumenthal, U., Gadepally, V., Hamlin, A., Mitchell, J.D., & Cunningham, R.K. (2018). Don't Even Ask: Database Access Control through Query Control. SIGMOD RECORD, 47(3), 17-22.
Batcheller, A., Fowler, S.C., Cunningham, R., Doyle, D., Jaeger, T., & Lindqvist, U. (2017). Building on the Success of Building Security In. IEEE SECURITY & PRIVACY, 15(4), 85-87.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/MSP.2017.3151336.
Cunningham, R.K., Haigh, T., Landwehr, C., & Valdes, A. (2017). Bring 'Diseased' Software Up to Code. COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM, 60(11), 8-9.
Cunningham, R., Gupta, P., Lindqvist, U., Sidiroglou-Douskos, S., & Hicks, M. (2016). IEEE SecDev 2016: Prioritizing Secure Development. IEEE SECURITY & PRIVACY, 14(4), 82-84.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/MSP.2016.71.
Itkis, G., Chandar, V., Fuller, B., Campbell, J.P., & Cunningham, R.K. (2015). Iris Biometric Security Challenges and Possible Solutions [For your eyes only-Using the iris as a key]. IEEE SIGNAL PROCESSING MAGAZINE, 32(5), 42-53.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/MSP.2015.2439717.
Shen, E., Varia, M., Cunningham, R.K., & Vesey, W.K. (2015). Cryptographically Secure Computation. COMPUTER, 48(4), 78-81.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/MC.2015.101.
Pfleeger, S.L., & Cunningham, R.K. (2010). Why Measuring Security Is Hard. IEEE SECURITY & PRIVACY, 8(4), 46-54.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/MSP.2010.60.
Zhivich, M., & Cunningham, R.K. (2009). The Real Cost of Software Errors. IEEE SECURITY & PRIVACY, 7(2), 87-90.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/MSP.2009.56.
Cunningham, R.K., Lippmann, R.P., & Webster, S.E. (2001). Detecting and displaying novel computer attacks with macroscope. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS MAN AND CYBERNETICS PART A-SYSTEMS AND HUMANS, 31(4), 275-281.Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). doi: 10.1109/3468.935044.
Lippmann, R.P., & Cunningham, R.K. (2000). Improving intrusion detection performance using keyword selection and neural networks. COMPUTER NETWORKS-THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPUTER AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORKING, 34(4), 597-603.Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/S1389-1286(00)00140-7.
Waxman, A.M., Seibert, M.C., Gove, A., Fay, D.A., Bernardon, A.M., Lazott, C., Steele, W.R., & Cunningham, R.K. (1995). Neural processing of targets in visible multispectral IR and SAR imagery. NEURAL NETWORKS, 8(7-8), 1029-1051.Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/0893-6080(95)00080-1.
CUNNINGHAM, R.K., & WAXMAN, A.M. (1994). DIFFUSION-ENHANCEMENT BILAYER - REALIZING LONG-RANGE APPARENT MOTION AND SPATIOTEMPORAL GROUPING IN A NEURAL ARCHITECTURE. NEURAL NETWORKS, 7(6-7), 895-924.Elsevier. doi: 10.1016/S0893-6080(05)80151-0.

Kann, T., Bauer, L., & Cunningham, R.K. (2024). CoCoT: Collaborative Contact Tracing. In Proceedings of the Fourteenth ACM Conference on Data and Application Security and Privacy, (pp. 175-186).Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). doi: 10.1145/3626232.3653254.
Mingolla, E., Cunningham, R.K., & Beck, J. (1998). Visual search in photo-realistic scenes. In PERCEPTION, 27, (p. 65).
Cunningham, R.K., Beck, J., & Mingolla, E. (1996). Visual search for a foreground object in continuous, naturalistic displays: The importance of shadows and occlusion. In INVESTIGATIVE OPHTHALMOLOGY & VISUAL SCIENCE, 37(3), (p. 1379).

Rob Cunningham

Biography

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Presentations