SSAC Members

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, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned 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)? No
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

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 a Senior Technical 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, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned 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)? No
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

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, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned 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)? No
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

Chaoyi Lu is a postdoctoral researcher at Tsinghua University. His research areas lie in Internet measurement and network security, with particular interests in DNS operations, large-scale data analysis, and security threats. He has published a couple of academic papers and is a recipient of the IRTF Applied Networking Research Prize (ANRP).

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, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned 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)?

No.

7. 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).

 

 

Sourena Maroofi is a cybersecurity specialist and researcher focused on Internet security, DNS abuse, and the stability of the domain name system. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Grenoble Alpes University in 2021, where his research centered on automated classification systems for domain abuse. He has contributed to research projects on large-scale DNS measurements, DNS abuse mitigation strategies, and has co-authored scientific publications in these areas. Currently, he works as a cybersecurity engineer at KOR Labs. In 2022, he founded URLAbuse, a platform dedicated to tracking and mitigating abusive URLs and domain names. His research interests include large-scale network measurements, DNS infrastructures, and DNS abuse investigations.

Disclosure of Interest

1. Please identify your current employer(s) and position(s). Cybersecurity analyst at KOR Labs and CEO of URLAbuse (urlabuse.com).
2. Please identify the type(s) of work performed at #1 above. Performing large-scale DNS measurement. Designing cyber threat intelligence platforms and online abuse management, mitigation and providing blocklist feed at URLAbuse.
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 the employee of KOR Labs and CEO of URLAbuse but do not have any position that might influence my expressed point of view.
4. Please list any financial or other material relationship beyond de minimus stock ownership that you, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned financial or other material relationship with ICANN. I do not have any direct or indirect financial or other material relationship with ICANN. My current employer had a project with ICANN before and currently has a partnership with NetBeacon institute.
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 current employer had a contract with ICANN for INFERMAL project. My current employer has also partnership with NetBeacon institute which I believe may have direct or indirect contract with ICANN. Personally, I've never had any direct or indirect contract 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)? No.
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

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 cyber attacks. 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, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned 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)? No
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s). N/A.

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, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned 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)? No
7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or person(s).

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.

         Producing research and analysis as part of a team or autonomously.

         Speaking on panels and specialist groups on issues pertaining to Internet Governance or areas of interest.

         Organising events and convening groups.

         Writing blogs, articles and academic papers.

          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, your employer, or an immediate family member/significant other has with ICANN or with any individual, company, or other entity that to your knowledge has a current or planned 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)?

         No

      7. If the answer is “yes,” please describe the arrangements or agreements and the name of the group, constituency, or                person(s).

          N/A