Kevin Butler, Ph.D.
Professor of Computer and Information Science and Engineering and Director of Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research
Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering
Kevin Butler directs the Center for Privacy and Security for Marginalized and Vulnerable Populations, a National Science Foundation Frontiers project. His research focuses on the security of computing devices, systems, networks and users of computing technology. His recent work in this area includes securing embedded systems and protocols, establishing the trustworthiness of data and maintaining its provenance, protecting internet traffic and examining censorship, attacks and defenses against the cloud infrastructure, and needs of vulnerable users, particularly populations with impairments and survivors of abuse.
Butler’s research areas also include securing internet routing, malware propagation, applied cryptosystems, adversarial machine learning, cyber-physical systems and trustworthy computing.
In the last five years, Butler has been involved in projects that have received $36 million in funding. During this period, he has also published 39 peer-reviewed publications, including 15 papers at the top conferences in computer security, and secured five patents. He is currently working on nine active grants and supervising 11 doctoral students.
“He has a vibrant current research agenda and is among the most distinguished researchers in cybersecurity,” said department Chair Juan E. Gilbert. “His innovative research is poised to make a continued impact.”
Butler received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in 2013 and was named International Educator of the Year within the College of Engineering in 2017 for his work on developing global standards for securing digital financial services in the developing world. From 2017 to 2022, he was co-chair of the International Telecommunications Union’s Security, Infrastructure and Trust Working Group as part of the Financial Inclusion Global Initiative.
Butler is a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the Association for Computing Machinery and a member of the Computing Research Association’s Community Computing Council. Butler is also an affiliate faculty member of the Center for Children and Families within the College of Law.