Executive Education

Carnegie Mellon, 1987 -.

Since earning his Ph.D., Dr. Benoit Morel has held appointments in physics at Harvard University as a Post-Doctoral Fellow, at CERN and University of Geneva, and at California Institute of Technology. His main subjects of interest were grand unified theories (supergravity in particular) and their underlying mathematical structure. After attending Caltech, he went to Stanford as a Science Fellow in arms control. There, he pursued research in the security implications and the technology of anti-ballistic missile defense.

Dr. Morel joined the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University in 1987 in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, with the Program on International Peace and Security. At Carnegie Mellon, his research interests have focused on military high technology, its technical details and structure, and its impact on security and arms control, as well as its effects on American defense policy.

Dr. Morel is also interested in non-linear dynamic models, and the study of complex systems and chaos, with application to a variety of areas, such as immunology, fluid mechanics, organization theory, economics, pollution, and environment.

Since the new millennium, Dr. Morel’s focus in research and teaching has been cybersecurity. Although he taught basically all aspects of cybersecurity, which he likes to characterize as the most complex threat to modern societies, his research focused mostly on two aspects: the use of artificial intelligence and the international dimension of the subject.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to be a game changer in cybersecurity. Intelligent security tools could provide the kind of protection that is elusive today because of the complexity of detecting and countering attacks. Artificial Intelligence tends to be developed around specific applications and for the time being few researchers seem interested in its potential in cyber security. The research of Benoit Morel was focused on anomaly autonomous intrusion detection systems and web attacks such as Cross Site Request Forgery.

When it comes to the International dimension of cybersecurity, Dr. Morel focused his attention on the development of cybersecurity capabilities in developing countries. He taught has been involved in developing programs in universities in India and Vietnam. He also follows closely what is happening in Africa.