Canada's Top Women in Cyber Security Celebration

July 23, 2020

Atefeh Mashatan's face as she is presented in the Top Women of Canada award cermony

Atefeh Mashatan is speaking about her award with congratulations

Toronto Metropolitan University's (Formerly Ryerson University) Cybersecurity Research Lab is proud to announce that our founder and director, Dr. Atefeh (Atty) Mashatan, was recognized as one of the Top Women in Cyber Security by IT World Canada (ITWC) (external link) .

The 75-minute virtual event (external link) was held on July 23, 2020 and honoured 20 women who were nominated by the ICT community as part of a three-month initiative sponsored jointly by ITWC and the Women in Security and Resilience Alliance (WISECRA). More than 170 nominations for 121 women were submitted for women who worked in cybersecurity across a wide variety of organizations, which included CISOs, company founders, professors, directors, and women holding numerous specialty positions in both the public and private sectors.

Dr. Mashatan was recognized as a leading expert in cryptography, blockchain technology, quantum-resistant solutions, enterprise security architecture and Internet of Things (IoT) security. During the event, she said her interest in cryptography started from her education in mathematics. Eventually, her career moved into the industry where she observed a talent gap in the cybersecurity workforce related to technical as well as the managerial side. She is now back in academia training the next generation of cybersecurity professionals who appreciate both technical and managerial sides of cybersecurity.

“The industry needs cybersecurity experts who truly understand the business context that cybersecurity sits in: technologists with IT management acumen,” said Dr. Mashatan. “I have met great people in the industry who have mastered this unicorn of a combo, but none of them were trained in any university because no university was offering a program like this.”

Along with her research at CRL, Dr. Mashatan is an assistant professor at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University (Formerly Ryerson University) She teaches many courses in the Business Technology Management program, which focuses on business management and information and communication technologies (ICT).

Dr. Mashatan is honoured to have been recognized alongside the list of honourees who have made extraordinary contributions to cybersecurity in Canada and globally, and would like to thank the Ted Rogers School of Management, her team at CRL, ITWC and the judging panel of this event for this commendation.

Watch the replay of the event here (external link) .

More information on the honourees here (external link) .