I am a Professor of Computer Science at the United States Air Force Academy in the Department of Computer and Cyber Sciences. My teaching focus is introductory computer science, software engineering, and database management systems. My research interests include software diversity for cyber resiliency, cloud computing security, and keyword search in databases.
I previously worked at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) and taught for Johns Hopkins’s Whiting School of Engineering as part of the Information Security Institute and Engineering for Professionals. In 2015, I received a New Faculty Teaching Award for teaching Foundations of Software Engineering.
I received a BS in Computer Science from Furman University in 2007 and an MS and PhD in Computer Science from the University of Virginia in 2009 and 2012. My graduate research was directed by Alfred C. Weaver and focused on keyword search in relational databases.
Education History
- BS Computer Science, Furman University
- MS Computer Science, University of Virginia
- PhD Computer Science, University of Virginia
Work Experience
Professor, United States Air Force Academy
Publications
See https://joel-coffman.github.io/publications for complete list. Selected publications, including student papers, listed below.
Peter Cocoros, Matthew Sobocinski, Kyle Steiger, and Joel Coffman, “Evaluating Techniques for Practical Cloud-based Network Intrusion Detection,” Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE International Conference on Smart Cloud (SmartCloud ‘20), Washington DC, USA, pp. 62–67, November 2020
Sanchay Gupta, Robert Miceli, and Joel Coffman, “A Replication Study to Explore Co-Residency of Virtual Machines in the Cloud,” Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD ‘20), Honolulu, Hawaii, August 2020
Muhammad Ayub, Patrick Knowles, Brandon Phan, and Joel Coffman, “The Cost of a Macaroon,” Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE Systems Security Symposium (SSS ‘20), Crystal City, Virginia, April 2020
Kelly Brady, Seung Moon, Tuan Nguyen, and Joel Coffman “Docker Container Security in Cloud Computing,” Proceedings of the 10th Computing and Communication Workshop and Conference (CCWC ‘20), Las Vegas, Nevada, January 2020
Daniel Ladouceur, Bimmy Pujari, Edward Gleeck, and Joel Coffman, “Techniques for Mutual Auditability in a Cloud Environment,” Proceedings of the International Workshop on Cloud, IoT, and Fog Security (CIFS ‘19), Auckland, New Zealand, December 2019
Bruce Benjamin, Joel Coffman, Hadi Esiely-Barrera, Kaitlin Farr, Daniel Genin, Laura Glendenning, Peter Hamilton, Shaku Harshavardhana, Rosalind Hom, Brianna Poulos, and Nathan Reller. “Data Protection in OpenStack.” In CLOUD ’17: IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 2017
Honors and Awards
- Excellence in Teaching Award for new instructors, Engineering for Professionals, Johns Hopkins University (2015)
- McGaughey Fellowship, School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia (2011)
- Phi Beta Kappa (2007)
- Upsilon Pi Epsilon (2006)
Professional Organizations
ACM
IEEE
IEEE Computer Society