SSAC Member Biographies and Disclosures of Interest as of 16 May 2025

Greg Aaron

Greg Aaron is President of Illumintel Inc. He is an authority on the malicious use of domain names, and is an expert on DNS operations, domain name policy, and related intellectual property issues.

Greg has advised companies, law enforcement, governments, and the ICANN community regarding all kinds of Internet-based abuse and cybercrime. He has investigated and mitigated major phishing attacks, spamming gangs, counterfeit and trademark violations, malware distribution, child sexual abuse image cases, and fast-flux networks. He holds a private detective license in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, USA. Greg is Senior Research Fellow at the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) and is the editor of the APWG's ongoing Phishing Activity Trends Reports series, which is the world's major source of phishing metrics and analysis.He publishes separate data-driven studies about the prevalence and distribution of phishing and malware. He has participated in numerous ICANN working groups, including policy-development groups related to privacy, registration data, and DNS security. He was the senior industry expert on the Ernst & Young team that evaluated the new TLD applications to ICANN in 2012-2013, and he oversaw the launches and operations of several gTLDs and ccTLDs in 2001 to 2011, including .INFO, .ME, and .IN. He is magna cum laude graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): President, Illumintel Inc.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Internet security, policy, and technology consulting.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: none
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Mr. Aaron is a member of ICANN's Registry Services Evaluation Panel. Illumintel is an associate of Interisle Consulting Group. Illumintel and Interisle may provide consulting services from time to time to ICANN contracted parties.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: I am a member of ICANN's Registry Services Evaluation Panel.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Joe Abley

Joe Abley works for Cloudflare. He was formerly the inaugural Chief Technology Officer of Public Interest Registry, the operator of the .ORG registry. Joe has also carried out a variety of technical roles at NSRC, ICANN, TekSavvy, Afilias, ISC and AboveNet, and has provided consulting services for a variety of other Internet companies in North America, Europe and New Zealand. He narrowly avoided failure at the University of Cambridge whilst young and foolish, and escaped in 1993 with a BA (Hons) in Physics and Computer Science.

Joe was a founding trustee of NZNOG and is a Fellow of InternetNZ. He served as chair of the NANOG Steering Committee, has volunteered as Executive Director of the IAB and has participated as an instructor in AfNOG and SANOG meetings, most usually in conjunction with the very excellent people at NSRC.

Joe's principal interests concern large-scale deployment, instrumentation, and observation of DNS services on the Internet. He has been known to make trouble at IETF meetings.

Joe lives and works from his home in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Director of Engineering, Cloudflare
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Engineering Management
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: DNS-OARC (Treasurer and elected member of the Board of Directors) RSSAC (member of the RSSAC Caucus) Internet Namespace Security Observatory (INSO) Advisory Board, George Mason University
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: My employer, Cloudflare, is a contracted party.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: I have had travel expenses reimbursed by ICANN within the last five years. I was a beneficial co-owner and a director of the Canadian consulting company Snake Hill Labs Inc until July 2022. Snake Hill Labs carried out consulting work for ICANN before I divested my interest in the company.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Benedict Addis

Benedict is employed by The Shadowserver Foundation, where he is the Chair of the Registrar of Last Resort (RoLR), a non-profit registrar that exists purely to quarantine malicious domains. From 2011 to 2014 he was a technical officer in the UK's National Cyber Crime Unit. There, his team was responsible for international cybercrime enquiries under the Budapest Convention and G8 24/7 process, and he was the unit's point of contact for 'threat to life' emergencies. He was previously a partner in a network and security start-up and worked as a researcher in the Secure Systems lab at HP Labs. He holds a Master's in Information Security from Royal Holloway University of London.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): My current employer is Shadowserver, where I am employed as Chair of the Registrar of Last Resort (RoLR)
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Security research and operations
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: n/a
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: I am Chair of RoLR, an ICANN-accredited registrar. In 2016, my employer The Shadowserver Foundation received funding from Nominet UK, an ICANN-accredited registry. In 2020, my employer The Shadowserver Foundation entered into a contractor consulting agreement with ICANN.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: As per my DOI, in 2020, my employer The Shadowserver Foundation entered into a contractor consulting agreement with ICANN. This is ongoing.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Maarten Aertsen

Maarten Aertsen is an engineer interested in the legal, social, and economic factors underlying the Internet's core technologies. He works as senior internet technologist at NLnet Labs, a small, independent public benefit organization contributing to the robustness, security and reliability of the Internet and the privacy of its users. Its open-source software and work on open standards for the Domain Name System and (safe) inter-domain routing is in use globally. Maarten enjoys bridging between technical and policy audiences and brings NLnet Labs' expertise to policy-making bodies, including governments, regulators, and multi-stakeholder forums. He holds an MSc in Telematics from the University of Twente and an MSc in cybersecurity from Leiden University's Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs and previously worked as senior advisor for the Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) and as advisor on privacy and security for Deloitte Risk Services.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): NLnet Labs, a not-for-profit foundation as senior internet technologist
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Open standards and open-source software development. NLnet Labs also provides expertise to policy making bodies, including governments, regulators, and multi-stakeholder forums. We regularly are consulted by a range of companies and organizations, including ICANN.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None at the time of writing.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: NLnet Labs does the occasional consultant job for ICANN and its stakeholders. We collaborate with and are sponsored by various parties in the industry; see our annual reports for details.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: As far as I know, NLnet Labs has had contracts with ICANN in the last 5 years on the following subjects: - Exploration study in response to RZERC002 Recommendation 2, with SIDN Labs - DNSSEC metrics study, with SIDN Labs (see https://www.sidnlabs.nl/en/news-and-blogs/dnssec-metrics-the-state-of-the-art-and-recommendations-for-the-future) - RSSAC028 measurements with SIDN Labs (see https://features.icann.org/rssac028-technical-analysis-naming-scheme-used-individual-root-servers https://indico.dns-oarc.net/event/46/contributions/1003/attachments/951/1768/RSSAC028) - Representation on the ISO 3166 MA and liaison function to ISO Technical Committee 46 Workgroup 2.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No. n/a

 

Gautam Akiwate

Gautam Akiwate works at Apple in the Core Networking Team. At Apple, Gautam works on improving security and privacy for end users. Prior to Apple, Gautam completed his PhD at UC San Diego and was then a Postdoctoral Researcher at Stanford University. During this time, he worked on the security and resilience of the DNS ecosystem where his research primarily concerned with how attackers leverage byzantine trust relationships between various entities on the Internet to undermine the security and stability of the Internet. In a previous roles, he worked on a range of things right from mobile computing, kernels, to next generation storage systems.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Apple, Engineer
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Security and Privacy
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: N/A
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Apple is a registry operator for .apple
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: I am not aware of business transactions between my employer and ICANN. My employer is a registry operator so interacts with ICANN, but I am not involved in those interactions.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Gabriel Andrews

Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) Gabriel Andrews received his bachelor's degree in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from the University of California at Santa Cruz and an M.B.A. from San Diego State University. He entered the FBI as a Special Agent in 2010, whereupon he was assigned to work criminal computer investigations in the Los Angeles Field Office. Since that first assignment, SSA Andrews has served as the FBI's Cyber representative to the Government of Canada out of the US embassy in Ottawa, as an SSA in FBI's Cyber division facilitating operational engagement with cybersecurity practitioners in the private sector, and most recently as an SSA in the FBI's Science & Technology Branch focusing on matters of Internet Governance and Standards Development.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Position: Supervisory Special Agent, Operational Technology Division
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Andrews has worked primarily as an investigator on Criminal Computer Intrusion matters (Title 18, U.S.C. ss 1030) and in FBI Headquarters roles supporting such investigations. His most recent position, effective 2022, is to lead FBI engagement within ICANN (and other multistakeholder Internet policy/standards bodies) where the work of such bodies is likely to impact law enforcement and/or public safety equities.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: SSA Andrews is a member (and current co-chair) of the Public Safety Working Group under ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None, beyond ICANN's presence as a nonprofit entity operating within the United States.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None known.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): Yes. There are two such arrangements/agreements: My participation as an SSAC member would be conducted professionally, serving the public safety interests of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My participation as an SSAC member would also be conducted with the awareness and support of the GAC's Public Safety Working Group, for which I have preexisting membership and obligations.

 

Timothy April

Tim April works for Google, LLC as a Staff Security Reliability Engineer. At Google, Tim on the team which defends Google and its customers from DoS attacks. Prior to Google, Tim was the Chief Security Architect for Akamai Technologies where he focused on Network and DNS security while also engaging in other areas across the company as needed. Tim designed, built and operated Akamai's ICANN Accredited Domain Name registrar. He holds a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Staff Security Reliability Engineer at Google, LLC
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Defend Google and its customers from DoS attacks
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: Board Member of the Internet Fire Brigade Society (A US 501(c)(3))
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Google is an ICANN Accredited registrar and a registry for multiple gTLDs.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: I am not aware of any business transactions between my employer and ICANN. My employer is a contracted party so interacts with ICANN, but I am not directly aware of those transactions.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Jeffrey Bedser

Jeffrey Bedser is a seasoned entrepreneur and leader in the fields of cybersecurity, cyber investigation, threat intelligence, and the mitigation of online harms. Currently, he is the CEO of CleanDNS, a company that is on a mission to clean up the internet for GOOD by detecting and stopping malicious online harm activities. He leverages his credentials as a private detective, his expertise in the DNS to protect the online safety and security of millions of users. He also serves on various boards and committees that aim to promote internet governance, stability, and jurisdiction. He is passionate about making the internet a better and safer place for everyone. With over 25 years of experience, he had founded and led iThreat through a successful exit. iThreat was a company that provided innovative solutions to combat online crime and harm. He served for 6.5 years as a director on the board of Public Interest Registry, the non-profit operator of the .ORG domain for the term 2017 - 2023. He finished his term as Board Chair.

Volunteer Activities: Jeff spent 13 years as a Scout Master, 15 years as a member of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee for ICANN and has been a member of the Editorial Board for the Security Journal since 2001. He is currently serving as a member of the Lower Makefield Township Historical Commission in the town by that name.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): CleanDNS Inc. CEO and Chair of the Board
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Online harms management and mitigation
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I am on the board of directors for CleanDNS as Chair. I hold a leadership position in SSAC.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: CleanDNS provides services in online harms mitigation and management to contracted parties and ccTLD operators.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: My previous employer and company, iThreat, held a contract with ICANN for the DAAR system. I no longer am associated with that company or contract as of 10.2021.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Nabil Benamar

Nabil Benamar is a Professor of Computer Sciences. His main research topics include Future Generation Networks, Autonomous Driving, IoT, and TinyML. He is the author of several journal papers and IETF Standard documents. He was an Associate Editor of the "IEEE Access" journal (IF 3.9). He is a TPC member of highly ranked IEEE Flagship conferences (Globecom, ICC, PIMRC, WCNC, etc..) Nabil served as the chair of IEEE MenaComm'20 conference and as a member of the Organizing Committee of IEEE WCNC'2019 and IWCMC’23. Nabil is an expert in Internet Governance and he was an ISOC Ambassador to IGF(2012 and 2013), Google panelist in the first Arab-IGF, ISOC fellow to IETF'89&92&95&99&103 and ICANN'50&54 fellow. Among his international commitments, he is currently serving as the chair of the Task Force for Arabic Script IDNs, a team of people working on the implementation of the Arabic script in the DNS Root Zone. He is also chairing the UASG measurement WG promoting the Universal Acceptance of all valid domain names and email addresses. He has been elected as the vice chair of the UASG.tech. He became a member of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee in December 2024.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Moulay Ismail University of Meknes, Morocco. Full Professor
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Professor of computer sciences
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I'm currently the vice-chair of the UASG.tech
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: NA
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: NA
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Vasyl Bratchenko

Vasyl Bratchenko is a Head of Customer Support at Namecheap and Spaceship. He has more than 10 years of experience managing customer support teams. Currently, he is in charge of the Legal and Abuse, Risk Management, and Technical Support teams at Namecheap and Spaceship. His primary focus is on strategies for abuse and fraud prevention and mitigation, setting standards for responsible teams, revising existing and establishing new processes for efficient abuse prevention and mitigation. He wishes the Internet to be free and open but also responsible and safe. He and his teams have accumulated significant knowledge and experience in handling abuse from the perspectives of both a domain name registrar and a hosting provider. His professional and networking interests include DNS abuse mitigation and prevention, threat intelligence, cyber security, and making the Internet a more understandable place for everyone.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Namecheap Inc, Head of Customer Support
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Namecheap is a domain registrar, also providing web hosting, SSL, email services, etc. I am responsible for Legal and Abuse, Risk Management and some other CS departments. This includes strategies of prevention and mitigation of fraud and DNS abuse, setting standards for responsible teams, revising existing and establishing new processes for efficient abuse prevention, internal security strategy, also, operational management
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: As an ICANN-accredited domain regisrar, Namecheap pays ICANN fee
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Lyman Chapin

Lyman Chapin is a co-founder of Interisle Consulting Group, LLC, where he advises companies, non-profit organizations, and government agencies on Internet technology, policy, and governance; telecommunications network security and resilience; and critical infrastructure protection. Before starting Interisle in 2002 he was Chief Scientist at BBN Technologies. Mr. Chapin is a Life Fellow of the IEEE and was a founding trustee of the Internet Society. He has served as a Director of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), where he currently chairs the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel and the DNS Stability Panel and serves as a member of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), and as chairman of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB) and the ACM Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM). Mr. Chapin was a principal architect of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model and protocols and is the co-author of Open Systems Networking—TCP/IP and OSI. His professional interests include Internet technology, particularly routing, traffic engineering, and the Domain Name System (DNS); Internet governance; and information security and personal privacy.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Interisle Consulting Group, LLC Principal
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Communications technology and policy consulting.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Interisle periodically performs consulting work for ICANN.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: During the past 5 years Interisle has had (and continues to have) contracts with ICANN to provide the Registry Services Technical Evaluation Panel and the DNS Stability Panel for the IDN ccTLD Fast Track.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

kc claffy

Kimberly C. Claffy ("kc claffy") is founder and director of the Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA), based at the University of California's San Diego Supercomputer Center, and Adjunct Professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at UCSD. kc's research interests include measurement, analysis, and visualization of Internet workload, routing, topology, and performance data. kc leads CAIDA's collection and curation of strategic Internet data sets and freely available tools and analysis methodologies to improve the scientific integrity of network research and to promote more informed engineering, business, and policy decisions regarding the Internet infrastructure.

Statement of Interest: CAIDA receives support from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, the U.S. National Science Foundation. Industry contributions constitute approximately 10% of our annual budget.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): UCSD/SDSC, Research Scientist. ucsd/sdsc; UCSD, Adjunct Professor, Computer Science and Engineering Dept.; CAIDA, Founder and Director. COO, Revelare Networks, Inc.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: strategy, leadership, upper management, external outreach, fundraising, and internet research. more info at https://www.caida.org/home/about/annualreports/.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Verisign donated a 50,000 gift to CAIDA @ UCSD in January 2021 to support a graduate student working on security-related DNS research. Funding sources for CAIDA at the end of each annual report: https://www.caida.org/home/about/annualreports/.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Steve Crocker

Steve Crocker is president and CEO of Edgemoor Research Institute, a non-profit whose purpose is to bring together non-profit, for-profit, governments, end-users, and other stakeholders to work together to share knowledge and establish voluntary technical solutions to complex data-related public policy challenges. He is currently focused on developing concepts and tools for expression and analysis of policies related to domain name registration data directory services.

Steve was the founding chair of SSAC, serving as chair, liaison to the ICANN board, and member from 2002 to 2017. Dr. Crocker was also a regular member of the ICANN board from 2008 to 2017, including chair from 2011 to 2017.

Steve began work as a programmer in 1961 and has been involved in networking since 1965. As part of the team at UCLA that connected the first host on the Arpanet, Steve chaired the Network Working Group that developed the first set of network protocols, and he initiated the Request for Comments series for documenting protocols.

Steve has been a research and development program manager at DARPA, a senior researcher at USC-ISI, founding director of the Computer Science Laboratory at Aerospace Corp, vice president of Trusted Information Systems, Inc., co-founder, and CTO of CyberCash, Inc., co-founder and CEO of Longitude Systems, Inc., co-founder and CEO of Shinkuro, Inc., and founder, president and CEO of Edgemoor Research Institute.

Steve has a B.A. in mathematics and a PhD in computer science from UCLA. His PhD thesis and research for several years thereafter was on the development and use of program verification tools.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Edgemoor Research Institute, President and CEO
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Edgemoor Research Institute is a non-profit whose purpose is to bring together non-profit, for-profit, governments, end-users, and other stakeholders to work together to share knowledge and establish voluntary technical solutions to complex data-related public policy challenges. He is currently focused on developing concepts and tools for expression and analysis of policies related to domain name registration data directory services.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None other than the work I am doing via Edgemoor Research Institute.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: ICANN paid travel to ICANN meetings in conjunction with my SSAC membership
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Hadia Elminiawi

Hadia Elminiawi is the Chief Expert on International Policies at the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) of Egypt from 2020 until present. She began her tenure at NTRA in 2016. She is an active member of group 5 (industry 4.0) of the Egypt IoT forum representing NTRA since January 2023 until present. Before she worked for .eg the Egyptian ccTLD for 14 years, where she held various positions including Operations Manager and Foreign Relations Manager. She is a member of the At-Large community and is currently the Chair of AFRALO. Her past roles include serving as an AFRALO ALAC member and as ALAC-AFRALO delegate to the NomCom. She also worked at the National Hungarian Trading House in Budapest as the Acting Director of the Arab and African department, during which she opened the offices of Egypt and Iraq. Hadia holds a Master of Science in leadership and Management from St. Istvan University in Hungary, a BSc. in Electronics and Communications from the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo university, and post graduate studies in Computer Science at the Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University. She is vice president of the Egyptian At-large Structure Shaarawy Foundation for Development, member of ISOC Egypt, member of the Egyptian Engineers Syndicate and board member of the Egyptian Diplomatic Spouses Association.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt (NTRA), Chief Expert on International Policies
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Provide support to various NTRA sectors and divisions as required. Provide internal and external training sessions as required. Provide innovative ideas and research.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: No commitments that might influence my expressed point of view.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Jothan Frakes

Most well known as co-Founder of the domain-industry's dominant tradeshow, NamesCon and his ongoing dedication and work with the Public Suffix List (PSL), Jothan Frakes has been working with domain names and DNS since 1991. He is CEO of Plisk.com, a bespoke ICANN Accredited Registrar that caters to celebrity and creative clientele, their agents and agencies. In addition to his noteworthy work in advocating the healthy use of domain names, Jothan has recently served as Vice-Chair of TechOps for the Registrar Stakeholder Group and the Co-Chair of the CPH TechOps, and held the role of Executive Director of the Domain Name Association, with decades of dedication in a variety of volunteer roles in key policy-development and implementation team work within ICANN's community. He has held numerous executive, founder, and consultative roles with numerous domain industry companies like Verisign, Minds+Machines, Team Internet, KPMG, working with ccTLD/gTLD registries, and ICANN-Accredited Registrars and various marketplace service providers for DNS, DNSSEC and domain aftermarket/monetization services. Jothan is based in Seattle, Washington and joined SSAC in 2024.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): (a) PLISK.COM (IANA 670) ICANN Accredited Registrar-> Owner (b) Jothan Frakes Consulting, Principle
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: (a) Operation of an ICANN Accredited Registrar, customer service, sales, marketing, compliance, audit, accounting, technical architecture, general operations. (b) Typically, but not limited to, providing reports and readouts to businesses in and around the internet and domain name industry that simplify the complex and nuanced changes and evolutions around ICANN as curated for those businesses (and attention spans)
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: Currently with (a) I am on the executive committee of the RrSG, as Vice-Chair of TechOps for the RrSG and Co-Chair of the CPH TechOps group and a member in good standing of the Registrar Stakeholder Group of ICANN. Although I place principles above personalities as a general rule in communication, and there is a large evidence of participation within and beyond ICANN groups that demonstrates my approach, someone unfamiliar with me might just see RrSG and assume a bias for Registrars. I am a primary volunteer for the Public Suffix List project [https://github.com/publicsuffix/list or https://publicsuffix.org ] for the last 15 years, although this is not a board or committee position, due to attrition and long-time abandonment of resourcing from browsers or other stakeholders, I filled a role in the absense of others as leading the project and representing it.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: N/A at this time
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: I pay annual dues to ICANN.org as do all holding an an ICANN Registrar Accreditation in good standing, so there is financial payment to ICANN. Conversely, I have received modest travel support during that time, which has been provided as part of the volunteer work
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No. If there had been a 'Maybe' button, I would have answered that it is my hope to help create a better bridge between the RrSG Executive Committee and the SSAC and work with the RrSG to create an SSAC Liaison role that currently does not exist should I be selected.

 

James Galvin (Liaison to the ICANN Board)

Dr. James Galvin is Director of Strategic Relationships and Technical Standards at Donuts, Inc., supporting and managing the company's relationships within Internet and IT communities. As an active, long-time member of these communities, Dr. Galvin participates in the development of the founding technical standards and policies upon which Internet applications and services are developed.

He was an integral participant in the initial development of Internet standards for secure email, domain name system security (DNSSEC), Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) security, and Registration Data Access Protocol (RDAP). He has chaired working groups, served as document editor, and managed public domain implementations of security protocols. His many years of technical consulting experience include critical infrastructure design and analysis, risk management, and project management. James was Vice Chair of the SSAC from 2011-2017.

Dr. Galvin has a Bachelor of Science degree from Moravian College with a double major in Computer Science and Mathematics. He holds a Master's in Computer Science and Information Systems from the University of Delaware where he also earned his Doctorate with a dissertation entitled, Distributed Cryptographic Key Management System.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Identity Digital, Inc; Director Strategic Relationships
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Identity Digital is a registry service and DNS service provider, among other things. We actively engage with organizations whose activities include the design and development of policies and technical standards that directly affect our operation and business. I am responsible for Identity Digital's technical relationship with these organizations.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Identity Digital is the registry service provider (in a few cases also the registry operator) for a number of TLDs that are contracted parties to ICANN.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: Identity Digital is the registry service provider (in a few cases also the registry operator) for a number of TLDs that are contracted parties to ICANN.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Robert Guerra

Robert Guerra is a seasoned trilingual policy and research professional with a background in medicine and digital rights. Over the past 25 years, he has focused on community building, training, and equipping organizations to leverage technology for advocacy, collaboration, and privacy protection. His expertise spans public health, harm reduction, and digital safety, with a strong emphasis on fostering secure and inclusive technological environments.

Currently, Robert serves as the Chief Technology Officer and Research Lead at the Collier Collective. In this role, he supports initiatives related to healthcare technology policy, and digital safety. He is also the founder and CEO of Privaterra.

Robert’s contributions extend to global platforms such as ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC), where he has played an active role in internet governance initiatives. He has represented Canada at two UN World Summits on the Information Society (WSIS) and worked with organizations like Citizen Lab and Freedom House. An Honours graduate of the University of Western Ontario and an alumnus of the Universidad de Navarra’s Faculty of Medicine, Robert combines his medical training with his technical expertise to foster impactful solutions in both public health and digital rights.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): CEO, Privaterra & Chief Technology Officer & Research Lead, Collier Collective, LLC
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: I serve as the Chief Executive Officer of Privaterra and concurrently hold the position of Chief Technology Officer and Research Lead at the Collier Collective. In these roles, I provide strategic leadership and support to teams and clients, focusing on critical areas such as digital safety, privacy, healthcare, and technology policy.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I am a member of ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC). As of April 8, 2025, I do not hold any board or committee positions outside of ICANN.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Privaterra and Collier Collective do not have any financial or other material affiliations with ICANN
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: Neither I, my employers, my clients, nor any immediate family members or significant others have engaged in any business transactions with ICANN over the past five years.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Russ Housley

Russ Housley is a founder and owner of Vigil Security, LLC, where he provides computer and networking security consulting to industry and government. He has served in many different Internet-related leadership roles, including chair of the Internet Activities Board (IAB), chair of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), IETF Security Area Director, chair of the IEEE 802.10 working group. He has served as working group chair for several IETF working groups and is continuing to do so today. He is serving as the Lead IETF Representative to the Community Coordination Group (CCG), which provides advice to the IETF Trust regarding matters related to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), and he is co-leader of the IAB-sponsored IETF-IANA Group. He is the designated expert for several IANA protocol parameter registries. He is the liaison manager for the IETF to the IEEE Standards Association, and he serves on several IETF document review teams. He is serving as a member of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC). Mr. Housley is the co-author of two books: Planning for PKI – Best Practices Guide for Deploying Public Key Infrastructure and Implementing Email and Security Tokens: Current Standards, Tools, and Practices. He is the author of many RFCs and contributed to many more.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Vigil Security, LLC Founder and owner AKAYLA, Inc. President
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: I consult on Internet Security and Internet Standards. My customers come from industry and government. Verisign is one of my customers. For the most part, commercial customers are handled through Vigil Security, LLC, and government customers are handled through AKAYLA, Inc.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I have been appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society. My term begins in June 2024.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): Yes. As indicated above, Verisign is one of my customers. Verisign sponsors my participation in SSAC.

 

Matthias Hudobnik

Matthias M. Hudobnik is a Legal Engineer and AI expert in Europol's Data Protection Function, combining his roles as a lawyer and an engineer. He focuses on AI and cyber security in operations, as well as research and innovation projects. Matthias works closely with Europol's Innovation Lab to foster innovation in law enforcement. Previously, he worked as a Data Privacy Lead at Accenture Security and as a Researcher at the Centre for IT & IP Law at the KU Leuven. With over 20 years of professional international experience spanning various sectors, including law enforcement and judiciary, cyber security and IT consulting, law and advocacy, academia and research in Europe, and Asia. Matthias serves as a member of ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) and as the At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) Liaison to the SSAC. Previously, he was a member of the ALAC for four years and is an alumnus of ICANN’s Fellowship Program, RIPE’s Fellowship Program, and the NextGen@ICANN Program. He is a Fellow of Information Privacy, a certified DPO, holds certifications as a CIPP/E, CIPT, and ISO 27001 Certified ISMS Lead Auditor, and has completed the CCNA 1/2/3/4 courses. Matthias holds a Magister iuris (JD equivalent) from the University of Graz in law, with an Erasmus exchange at Tilburg Law School and obtained an engineer (BS equivalent) from the College of Electronics Klagenfurt in informatics and internet engineering. He regularly speaks at international conferences and is author of several publications related to data protection, cyber law, cyber security, and legal tech. Fun facts: Matthias is a multi-award-winning hackathon participant, a triathlete and multiple Ironman finisher, and is interested in emoji governance; he was the first Austrian student member of the Unicode Consortium.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): I work as a Legal Engineer in Europol's Data Protection Function, combining my roles as a lawyer and an engineer.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: I am focusing on AI and cyber security in operations, as well as research and innovation projects. I collaborate closely with Europol's Innovation Lab to foster innovation in law enforcement.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I currently hold the following board and committee positions: ALAC Liaison to SSAC, and EURALO Board Member.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: N/A
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: N/A
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Geoff Huston

GEOFF HUSTON AM has been closely involved with the development of the Internet for the past 30 years. In the late 1980's he was the Technical Manager at the Australian Academic and Research Network and was responsible for the pioneering work in introducing the Internet to Australia. In the mid 1990's he joined Telstra, Australia's major communications enterprise, and led their Internet Engineering group. He was Telstra's Internet Architect in the 2000's, leading the overall design effort in what was then a global IP carrier network operated by Telstra. He joined APNIC (the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Registry) in the mid 2000's as the Chief Scientist and leads APNIC's research endeavours. Geoff has been a Trustee of the Internet Society from 1992 until 2000 and served as Chair of the Board of Trustees for a two-year term term and as Secretary to the Board for much of the remainder of that time. He has been an active member of the IETF for many years and has served on the Internet Architecture Board from 1999 until 2005 and has also chaired a number of Working Groups and authored a number of RFCs. He has written three books on the Internet and is a regular column writer on various aspects of the technology, business, politics, and economics of the Internet. His current research interests include inter-domain routing, the domain name protocol, and their related security issues and the IPv6 transition.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): APNIC, Chief Scientist
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Regional Internet Registry
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: none
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: none
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: APNIC has executed a cooperative research agreement with ICANN.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Layal Jebran

Layal is a technologist and the CEO and co-founder of Moubarmij, as well as the co-chair of the ICANN Middle East Space. With a background in architecture and design, she transitioned to technology after graduating. Layal has significant expertise in digital security technology and digital transformation, specializing in the design and deployment of comprehensive digital security strategies and frameworks on a global scale. Her work includes formulating robust cybersecurity measures and conducting digital forensic investigations to safeguard data integrity. Layal has held advisory positions at Codi Tech and ISOC Lebanon Chapter. In 2019, she was a speaker at the MIT SciTech Conference, sharing insights on emerging technologies and their applications. In recognition of her contributions to the field, Layal was honored as one of the seven women ‘Who Rule the Web’ by the British Council and the World Wide Web foundation on the 30th anniversary of the Web. She recently completed her Executive MBA from the Quantic School of Business and Technology, graduating with honors.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Moubarmij - Owner
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Overall management of the company. I oversee product, operations, marketing, and tech teams.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None at the moment
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None. Except for acceptance to fellowships with ICANN
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Andrei Kolesnikov

Presently: Internet of things Association (Russia), director. Use to serve as ALAC liaison to SSAC util 2024. Past: engineer RIPN.RU, director of ccTLD .RU registry Work in the past with ICANN SO/ACs: ccNSO, gNSO, Atlarge

30+ years of experience on the domestic and international telecommunications markets. Professional interest and specialization: IDN marketing, registry operations, IoT & security, digital objects / digital twins' identification, industrial platforms and data models, Hi-load and distributed IT systems.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Internet of things Association, director
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Managing IoT community, NGO
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Warren Kumari

Warren Kumari is Director of Internet Standards with Google and has been with the company since 2005. Warren represents Google in various industry standards groups and is responsible for all aspects of keeping the Google production network both secure and operational.

Warren served as the IETF Operations Area Director from 2017 - 2025, and since 2025, serves on the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). Warren has over 30 years of experience in the Internet industry, ranging from tiny start-up ISPs to large enterprises. Prior to Google, he was a Senior Network Engineer at AOL and before that he was Lead Network Engineer at Register.com (when the Shared Registry System first started).

With security concerns becoming more and more prevalent, Warren has chosen to be an active participant of the IETF, the ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee, and various network operator groups, including NANOG and RIPE. These groups afford him the opportunity to contribute to the community in a vital way by supporting and advancing Internet standards and protocols.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): I am employed by Google LLC as Director of Internet Standards, in the Internet Evangelism / Global Networking group. I am also a (no-fee) consultant to the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI), assisting with the operations of B-root.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: The Internet Evangelism Group's mission is to promote the spread of Internet, including through standards efforts. As such, I participate in multiple bodies, including the IETF (where I serve on the IESG, as Operations Area Director), various network operators' groups and ICANN SSAC, ICANN NCAP, representing the interests of the Internet.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: IETF Internet Architecture Board Chair – Internet Engineering Planning Group (IEPG) Chair – Technology Deep Dives Program (TDD) IETF NOC (building and running the IETF meeting network) ICANN SSAC ICANN RSSAC Caucus
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Charleston Road Registry (CRR) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Google. Charleston Road Registry is an applicant for and operator of a number of top-level domain names. I have no immediate family members / significant others with relations to ICANN or ICANN activities.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: Charleston Road Registry is an applicant for, and operator of a number of top-level domain names. I'm not part of this gorup, nor do I have any sort of visibility into Google's financials related to ICANN.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Barry Leiba

Barry Leiba has been a Director of Internet Standards at Futurewei Technologies since 2009. Before that he was a Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM's Research Division and worked for IBM since 1977. He's worked on email and related technology since the early 1980s, and currently focuses on the "Internet of Things", messaging and collaboration on mobile platforms, security and privacy of Internet applications, and Internet standards development and deployment. Barry has been active in the Internet Engineering Task Force since the mid 1990s; is an author of a number of proposed standards; has chaired many working groups in the Applications and Security Areas; is the IETF liaison to the Messaging Mobile and Malware Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG); and has served on the Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) as Applications Area Director, and on the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). He is Associate Editor-in Chief of IEEE Internet Computing magazine, in charge of departments and columns, including the "Standards" department. He is a member of the Internet Society Board of Trustees.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Futurewei Technologies, Director of Internet Standards
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Internet technology and standards
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I am on the Internet Society Board of Trustees. I am an Associate Editor in Chief of IEEE Internet Computing magazine. I am an Expert Advisor at M3AAWG, and the IETF liaison to M3AAWG.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

John Levine

John R. Levine writes, speaks, and consults on the Internet, electronic mail, cybersecurity, and related topics. He is a Senior Advisor to M3AAWG (the Messaging, Malware, Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group) and a regular participant in the IETF, the author or co-author of 14 RFC documents. He is the president of CAUCE, the grass-roots anti-spam and anti-abuse organization, and has been involved in its activities ranging from writing legislation to law enforcement training.

He's written many books on the Internet and other computer topics. His books range from the best-selling "Internet for Dummies," with over seven million copies of fourteen editions in print in dozens of languages, to books on computer language tools including "Linkers and Loaders" and "flex and bison."

He has spoken to many trade, policy, and general groups. He's testified at the Federal Trade Commission Spam Forum on the mechanics of spam, to the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on spyware, was part of the Industry Canada Task Force on Spam and helped create Canada's Anti-Spam Law. He's provided legal consulting on Internet and software intellectual property cases for many industrial clients, and for the governments of the United States, Canada, and New Zealand.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Self-employed, doing business as Taughannock Networks and as Standcore LLC
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Consulting and software development.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: President, CAUCE North America (unpaid)
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: I am a small Tucows' domain reseller, and Standcore has done contract R&D for ICANN, and does some software development for the IETF.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: I have a contract with ICANN to write a package for a self-hosted EAI server for the UASG. The work is done and I expect it to be signed off by the end of April.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Chaoyi Lu

Chaoyi Lu is a postdoctoral researcher at Institute for Network Sciences and Cyberspace of Tsinghua University. His research areas lie in Internet measurement and network security, with particular interests in DNS operations, large-scale data analysis, and security. He has published a couple of academic papers on these topics and is a recipient of the IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize. Chaoyi received his PhD in 2022 from Tsinghua University.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Tsinghua University, Postdoctoral Researcher
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: I perform academic research about Internet measurement and network security, particularly on DNS operations, large-scale data analysis, and security threats.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Danny McPherson

Danny McPherson leads Verisign’s technology and security organizations. He is responsible for Verisign’s corporate and production infrastructure, platforms, services, engineering and operations, as well as information and corporate security. He has actively participated in internet operations, research and standardization since the early 1990s, including serving on the Internet Architecture Board and chairing an array of Internet Engineering Task Force and other working groups and committees. He has authored several books and numerous patents, internet protocol standards and network and security research publications. Prior to joining Verisign in 2010, Danny was chief security officer at Arbor Networks, where he developed solutions to detect and mitigate cyberattacks. He also performed pioneering research on internet infrastructure evolution, as well as botnet and malware collection and analysis. Before that, he held technical leadership positions in architecture, engineering and operations with Amber Networks, Qwest Communications, Genuity, MCI Communications and the U.S. Army Signal Corps.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Verisign, Inc. EVP Technology & CSO
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Lead Technology and Security for organization.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None beyond employer.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: Verisign serves as a contracted party with ICANN for registry services, as well as Root Zone Maintainer.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No. N/A.

 

Ram Mohan (SSAC Chair)

Ram Mohan (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rmohan/) is Chief Strategy Officer of Identity Digital, the world's largest TLD registry operator. Ram works closely with the CEO, board members and other executives to achieve Identity Digitals' long-term vision. Ram is responsible for the company's strategic-planning processes, leading the development of strategy, translating it for people across functions and business units, driving organizational change, and aligning the company towards innovation. Ram was earlier the COO at Afilias, which was acquired by Donuts in 2020, where he led the strategic growth of the company in registry services and security as well as new product sectors such as Managed DNS, IoT, and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs).

Ram is a founding charter member of the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC). He served as the SSAC's non-voting liaison to the ICANN Board of Directors from 2008-2018. During his tenure on the ICANN Board, he chaired the Risk Committee, the Universal Acceptance Committee, and the Internationalized Domain Name Committee, served on the Governance, Compensation and Technology Committees; Chaired the Board Strategic Planning Committee, and helped the Board navigate important strategic and governance issues relevant to global non-profit Boards.

Previous positions include Co-Founder TurnTide (an anti-spam company acquired by Symantec 2001); COO Infonautics (a publicly traded Ed-Tech company).

He is an inventor on nineteen U.S. patents in Internet technology, recipient of InfoWorld's 'Premier 100 Technology Leaders' award, a CIO100 honoree and Guinness World Record holder (2018). He completed his BS in Electrical Engineering and MBA in India before working on his MS at Drexel and post-graduate coursework at Harvard and INSEAD.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Identity Digital, Chief Strategy Officer
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Executive role, including managing various aspects of the company
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: Board member at CleanDNS, Inc., a cybersecurity company
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: My employer, Identity Digital, and its predecessor, Afilias, are subject to contracts with ICANN for the fulfilment of registry services.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Russ Mundy

Mr. Mundy has worked in communications, security and computer networking since the 1970's. Over this time, his responsibilities involved multiple aspects of operations, policy development and research as well as leading groups of engineers, researchers and developers whose primary focus is improving the security of Internet infrastructure technologies.

Much of Mr. Mundy's early career was with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) where his responsibilities involved many aspects of design, engineering, security and operations of communications and computer networks. Mr. Mundy was involved with the DoD's decision to use ARPAnet technology as the basis for DoD's operational data network. As the first large-scale operational use of technology that is now known as Internet, Mr. Mundy was involved with creation and evolving of DNS, several routing protocols, remote network management as well as sponsoring the fledgling Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Mr. Mundy's last position in the DoD was as Chief Scientist for the U.S. DoD's Defense Data Network.

After leaving the U.S. DoD, Mr. Mundy took a position with Trusted Information Systems (TIS) as a senior research scientist where he lead and conducted research in the areas of Internet infrastructure security, network security, trusted operating systems and protocol development. The group led by Mr. Mundy for over thirty years was initially formed at TIS with the mission of improving the security of the Internet infrastructure. This group was involved with purchases several times and eventually became part of Parsons. Mr. Mundy and his group have been involved with most aspects of DNSSEC from it's earliest days including writing the first implementation and providing IETF Working Group leadership. Mr. Mundy was also instrumental in creation and standardization of SNMPv3 as the Chair/CoChair of the IETF SNMPv3 Working Group as well as providing two implementations of the protocol. He has also conducted research in the areas of routing security as well as integration of computing and cryptographic technologies.

Russ has been engaged with a number of ICANN activities for many years including being an original member of SSAC. Some of these activities include being SSAC an representative to the IANA Functions Stewardship Transition Coordination Group, participation in the NomCom, Root Zone Evolution Review Committee (RZERC), ICANN Academy Leadership Program as well as the SSAC Liaison to the Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC). Additionally, he was one of the original organizers of the DNSSEC and Security Workshops that have provided technical education and outreach for the community during ICANN meetings.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Internet Infrastructure Consultancy (IIC)/tislabs. Position: Principal Networking Scientist
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: IIC provides consultancy services for various activities including occasional work for ICANN and its stakeholders.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I do not currently hold any such positions.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: IIC provides occasional consultant input to ICANN.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: During the last 5 years, ICANN partially funded a research report titled "The Creation and Administration of Unique Identifiers, 1967-2017" that provides detailed descriptions of early as well as current unique identifiers used by the Internet.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Georgia Osborn

Georgia is currently an Associate Technologist at Ofcom. She has several years of experience within Internet Governance, policy analysis, intelligence investigations, and counterterrorism. She was previously a Senior Research Analyst at Oxford Information Labs and the Academic Partnerships Lead at the DNS Research Federation. She has a Master’s degree in International Studies and Diplomacy from SOAS University of London. Her most recent research spans emerging technologies such as Blockchain, AI, Quantum computing, and technical standards, with a focus on digital policy and regulations. Her work has been published in leading journals and platforms such as the Chatham House Journal of Cyber Policy, the Oxford Internet Institute, and the World Politics Review. Notable publications include: - Web3 Disruption and the Domain Name System: Understanding the Trends of Blockchain Domain Names and the Policy Implications:. (Chatham House, 2023) - Harmonising Artificial Intelligence: The Role of Standards in the EU and AI Regulations (Oxford Internet Institute, 2021) - Net Effects, an Evidence-led exploration of IGF Impact (DNSRF, 2024) - The Capitol Riot Highlighted the Value - and Pitfalls - of Crowdsourced OSINT (World Politics Review, 2022)

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Oxford Information Labs - Senior Research Analyst DNS Research Federation - Academic Outreach and Partners Lead
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: 1) Producing research and analysis as part of a team or autonomously. 2) Speaking on panels and specialist groups on issues pertaining to Internet Governance or areas of interest. 3) Organising events and convening groups. 4) Writing blogs, articles and academic papers. 5) Academic outreach and partner engagement.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: The DNSRF has received funding for: - UASG Project: “Inconsistency of UA-Readiness & User Experience” - Project with ICANN's OCTO: “OCTO Resolver Capability Testing Project” OXIL, the entity incubating the DNSRF, has received funding for: - Middle East and Adjoining Countries DNS Marketplace study 2015-2016 (OXIL) - Latin America and Caribbean DNS Marketplace Study 2016
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: See above.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No. N/A

 

Rod Rasmussen

Rod Rasmussen is a retired cybersecurity executive who, while investing in and advising start-ups, is spending the bulk of his work time volunteering for cybersecurity related organizations. This includes membership in ICANN’s Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) [Chair 2018-2023], contributing as a Senior Advisor to the Messaging Malware Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG), serving on the board of the Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG) and participating in numerous other industry organizations. Rasmussen provides occasional consulting and expert witness services via R2 Cyber, where he is the principal.

Prior to retirement, Rasmussen co-founded the cybersecurity company IID and was the company's CTO prior to its acquisition in 2016. He has been widely recognized as a leading expert on the abuse of the domain name system by criminals. Rasmussen is also an active participant in and the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST). He is a regular participant in DNS-OARC meetings, the worldwide organization for major DNS operators, registries and interested parties. He is also a long-standing member of the Advisory Board for the School of Engineering and Technology at the University of Washington Tacoma. Rasmussen earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC-Berkeley and holds two bachelor's degrees, in Economics and Computer Science, from the University of Rochester. He has worked in both government (the Congressional Budget Office) and various computer communications and networking companies throughout his career.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Self-employed (but mostly retired) R2 Cyber - Principal
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Occasional consulting and expert witness services
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I am on the corporate board and am an investor in CleanDNS, a company that provides services to mitigate DNS Abuse who customers in the domain registration industry, cybersecurity industry and may do work for ICANN from time to time. I am a member of the Board of the Anti-Phishing Working Group, an industry organization that ICANN is a member of, and who occasionally sends advice to the ICANN Board in matters related to cybersecurity and e-crime.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: CleanDNS as mentioned in prior question.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Matthew Thomas

Matt Thomas is a Fellow in Verisign's chief security officer (CSO) applied research division. His research focuses on numerous aspects of internet security, stability and resiliency including but not limited to DDoS attacks, domain name abuse, miscreant behavior within the Domain Name System (DNS), and large-scale measurements and evolving trends in internet architectures. Thomas is responsible for supporting an array of activities across the company including data-driven analytical functions for Verisign's value-added services, supporting internal research initiatives, external engagement, and supporting critical data analysis efforts. Thomas has more than 15 years of experience working with large, distributed data collection and analysis systems. Prior to joining Verisign in 2008, Thomas worked as a software engineer at AT&T. He was responsible for designing and implementing a distributed data collection system that measured and analyzed the operational performance of systems and services hosted by AT&T throughout the world. Thomas earned a Bachelor of Science in computer science and Master of Science in information systems and technology from The Johns Hopkins University. He has authored more than 10 peer-reviewed publications and he has been awarded 11 patents from the USPTO. He is in good standing as a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and Certified Hadoop Developer (CDH).

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): VeriSign Inc, Fellow.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: I am responsible for supporting an array of activities across the company including data-driven analytical functions for Verisign's services, conducting research initiatives, external engagement with the DNS community, and executing Verisign's security, stability, and resiliency projects.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I have served on M3AAWG's (the Messaging, Malware, Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group) board of directors since 2017.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: Verisign is my sole employer. Verisign is a contracted party with ICANN. No immediate family member and/or significant others have any financial or other interest in ICANN including any ICANN policy, program, process, or anything related to ICANN or the ICANN community.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: Verisign, my employer, is a registry operator for .com and other gTLDs and is the root zone maintainer on behalf of ICANN (or its subcontractor) for the IANA root. As such, Verisign, and ICANN (or its subcontractor) engage in business transactions via registry agreements, a letter of intent, and the root zone maintainer services agreement. Some of these agreements have been amended, renewed, or entered into within the last 5 years.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Peter Thomassen

Peter Thomassen is the founder and Chief Technology Officer of deSEC, a free, managed DNSSEC hosting platform. It is deSEC's mission to enhance the security of online data transmission, by spreading the seamless use of state-of-the-art encryption technology. He is also a Managing Director at SSE Secure Systems Engineering, a German IT Security Consultancy. Peter has 20+ years of experience in the Internet and security industry, starting out with his web hosting company a4a (founded 2001) and later serving as an early CTO for the not-for-profit dotHIV TLD registry (2013). In 2014, Peter founded deSEC, and in 2018, he joined SSE as a Senior Security Expert and later Senior Solutions Architect in software development projects from various enterprise and public sector industries. He is an active member of the IETF with contributions to various working groups that have overlap with the DNS. He has presented on related topics at ICANN, IETF, RIPE, and DNS OARC conferences as well as the CA/B Forum. His main interests lie with security concepts that are deployable on large scale and relate to communications privacy, the key exchange problem, and efficient DNSSEC automation. Peter holds a B.Sc. (2010, University of Würzburg, Germany) and a M.Sc. (2012, Rutgers University, USA) in physics. During the following years, he worked as a particle physics researcher at CERN, Geneva, and obtained a physics Ph.D. from Rutgers University in 2016. His research work was on extracting traces of previously unseen particles using big data samples collected at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. In 2017 and 2018, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in computer science at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences / Free University Berlin, focusing on Identity Management issues. Today, he occasionally publishes research papers on DNS security matters.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s):
   1. SSE – Secure Systems Engineering GmbH: Managing Director IT Security Consultancy / Engineering company
   2. deSEC e.V.: Founder / Board Member, Managed DNS hosting platform with DNSSEC out of the box, Secure communications protocol development
   3. a4a GmbH: Founder, CEO, Web hosting, e-mail
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: a) Advising clients about their (e.g. cloud) security posture, developing enterprise security concepts, supporting clients’ development teams b) Software development, protocol and policy development; board duties c) Systems administration, executive duties
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: Member of Internet Namespace Security Observatory (INSO) Advisory Committee
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: deSEC e.V. is a grantee of the ICANN Grant Program (2024 round)
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: My employer (deSEC e.V.) entered into a grant agreement with ICANN (2024 Grant Program) in April 2025
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer ""yes"" or ""no."" If the answer is ""yes,"" please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No. "

 

Laurin Weissinger

Laurin B. Weissinger serves as Principal Consultant on matters AI and security at Confisio Consulting and teaches Information and IT Security at the Department of Computer Science, Tufts University. He is also a visiting fellow at Yale Law School. Laurin serves as a Research Fellow at APWG and an Expert Advisor to M3AAWG, while being a member the “Digital Trust” group at ISACA Germany and the FIRST Human Factors, DNS Abuse, and AI SIGs. Laurin has completed his DPhil (PhD) at the University of Oxford, and holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, and Birmingham, along various industry certifications in security and privacy. Laurin’s main focus areas are DNS abuse, trustworthy and secure AI, security policy, and abuse in complex, distributed systems.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Principal Consultant, Confisio Consulting Department of Computer Science, Tufts University, Visiting Scholar School of Information, UC Berkeley, Lecturer
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: 1. Consulting on: Security governance, Hardening, Security Management, Third Party Assessments, Audits 2. and 3. Teaching and Research regarding IT and information security
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: Expert Advisor to M3AAWG, APWG Fellow and Conference Program Chair Individual FIRST member
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: No
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: No
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Tara Whalen (SSAC Vice Chair)

Tara Whalen is Privacy Lead at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Tara previously worked as a privacy engineer in industry roles at Cloudflare, Google, and Apple, and as an IT Research Analyst at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. She conducted post-doctoral research in computer security at Carleton University, after receiving a PhD in computer science at Dalhousie University, and obtained a Master of Laws (Concentration in Law and Technology) from the University of Ottawa. Tara has over 25 years of experience in the information security and privacy fields, including roles in research labs, academia, federal government institutions, and the private sector.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Privacy Lead
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Lead a variety of industry and user groups toward the development of technologies that enhance the privacy of the Web. Engage with industry and academic leaders on privacy issues. Identify and cultivate new proposals for standardization to improve privacy through stakeholder outreach and consensus-building. Maintain a community of privacy reviewers to help with privacy reviews of W3C standards. Be responsible for creating and supporting W3C Working Groups (e.g., edit specifications, develop change proposals, monitor progress, produce tests). Communicate and seek consensus with the W3C Members and the community at-large on privacy issues and trends.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: None.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: None.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Richard Wilhelm

Rick Wilhelm is the Chief Technology Officer at Public Interest Registry, the operators of .org and other mission-driven TLDs. Rick has extensive background in domain name infrastructure, product, & policy, enterprise IT, and consulting. Prior to joining PIR, Rick served as Verisign’s Vice President of (Registry) Platform Management. He also spent over a decade serving in executive positions for Network Solutions and Neustar, where he was the principal architect of the company’s first gTLD registry and led the technical launch of .biz, the subsequent transition and relaunch of .us, and other technical milestones. Rick has served in a variety of roles in the ICANN community, including Vice-Chair of the Customer Standing Committee, member of the First and Second IANA Function Reviews, and various other contributions. Rick is also active at IETF, M3AAWG, CENTR, and other related industry fora.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): Public Interest Registry, Chief Technology Officer
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Responsible for PIR's technology strategy and operations, along with technical policy.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: None.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: My employer operates .ORG and other gTLDs under contract to ICANN.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: See above regarding the contractual relationships between ICANN and my employer.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Suzanne Woolf

Suzanne Woolf is experienced in both the technical and policy aspects of the evolution of the Internet, particularly DNS and other network operations. She has held a variety of roles in technical strategy and policy, product management, software engineering management, and related areas for employers and consulting clients including University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute, ICANN, Internet Systems Consortium, and several TLD registries. At present, she is a fulltime employee of Public Interest Registry (PIR), the operator of .ORG and several other TLDs. Suzanne's current networking interests center on large scale infrastructure, Internet security, and the evolution of DNS. In addition to membership in SSAC, Suzanne currently serves as a co-chair of the DNSOP working group of the IETF. She has also served on the Root Server System Advisory Committee (RSSAC) as a member and as liaison to the ICANN Board; the Internet Architecture Board; the corporate boards of DNS-OARC and PIR; and the ARIN Advisory Council.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): I am Senior Director, Technical Community Outreach, for Public Interest Registry, Inc. PIR is the operator of .ORG, one of the oldest and largest gTLDs, and several other smaller gTLDs, including IDNs. PIR is a 501(c)(3) US non-profit membership organization, whose sole member is the Internet Society, a 501(c)(3) devoted to advocating for the open Internet.
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: I am Senior Director, Technical Community Outreach, for Public Interest Registry, Inc. PIR is the operator of .ORG, one of the oldest and largest gTLDs, and several other smaller gTLDs, including IDNs. PIR is a 501(c)(3) US non-profit membership organization, whose sole member is the Internet Society, a 501(c)(3) devoted to advocating for the open Internet.
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: I'm on the program committee of DNS-OARC (http://www.dns-oarc.net). I'm currently co-chair of the DNS Operations Working Group in the IETF. I'm a long-time member and the original convener of the RSSAC. I've been a board or advisory council member of ARIN, the IETF (as a member of the IAB), ICANN, PIR, and DNS-OARC. None of these organizations attempts to influence my views specifically with regards to issues before SSAC, but I've maintained ties with all of them and they all influence my views.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: My employer operates .ORG and its other gTLDs under contract to ICANN. The PIR RA is the generic RA that the other gTLD operators have also agreed to. In addition, PIR is contracted with ICANN-accredited registrars under the Registry-Registrar Agreement, a generic contract negotiated among ICANN, the registries, and the registrars.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: See above on contractual relationships between ICANN org and my employer.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.

 

Jiankang Yao

Jiankang Yao received his master degree of Computer Science in National University of Singapore and joined CNNIC in 2003 as a research engineer. In CNNIC, he had a further study and received his Ph.D. degree of Computer Software and Theory in CNIC, CAS (Chinese Academy of Sciences). His main research interests include but not limit to EAI, IDN, DNS, and Internet naming. Since the 62nd IETF meeting in 2005, he has been active in the IETF and has experiences in working as the IETF WG co-chair and secretary. Especially, he made a lot of contribution to EAI BOF and WG. In order to help to move EAI documents from experimental RFCs to Standards Track RFCs, he did a lot of EAI implementation and testing. Moreover, he got the APEC funding for EAI deployment as the overseer. From 2020-2024, he was an IAB (Internet Architecture Board) member in IETF. Currently he serves as the Co-Secretary of the Chinese Domain Name Consortium (CDNC). He is also the ICANN ccNSO council member.

Disclosure of Interest:

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s): CNNIC Senior Engineer
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above: Internet technology related research, including DNS, IDN, EAI and more
3. Please identify any board or committee positions that you hold that might be perceived as influencing your expressed point of view, irrespective of whether they are voluntary: N/A
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you or your employer has with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a financial or other material relationship with ICANN: CNNIC is a registry of ICANN.
5. Please list any business transactions that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has had with ICANN within the last 5 years: CNNIC donates some funding to ccNSO every year. ICANN gives CNNIC some funding to support UA activities.
6. Is your participation as an SSAC member the subject of any arrangements or agreements between you and any other group, constituency, or person(s)? Please answer "yes" or "no." If the answer is "yes," please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s): No.