66 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

with Natalie M. Scala

Natalie M. Scala is an assistant professor

and director of graduate programs in

supply chain management and project,

program and portfolio management in the

College of Business and Economics at

Towson University in Towson, Maryland.

She earned her Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in

effort to secure election processes in

Maryland. Scala frequently consults with

government clients and has extensive

professional experience. Her first book,

a co-edited volume titled Handbook of

Military and Defense Operations Research,

is forthcoming in early 2020. She is

a member of IISE and the Society for

Engineering Management Systems.

What’s

team research is being done, but getting companies and organizations to actually

implement these cutting-edge algorithms and a security mindset is another story.

There is a great opportunity for IEs to contribute to this.

How is ISE problem-solving being used to secure elections?

Most of the research is done at the state level and looks at aggregating votes and the

security of voter registration databases. We don’t see a lot of research at the local level

as potential risks identified and mitigated.

The second project develops training modules for election judges so they can

become aware of potential cyber, physical and insider threats. The goal is to enable

judges to identify potential issues and threats and work to mitigate those threats.

Currently judges do not receive any cyber or threat-related training before the

election, so these modules fill a practical gap. The work thus far has led to two

accepted/published papers on elections security.

How have your findings been received by election officials?

We have partnered with a midsized county in Maryland. Maryland uses the same

elections equipment and essentially the same processes, so the models and modules

we create using the case study county can be applied across the state. Having the

What is ahead for election cybersecurity in 2020 and beyond?

Mainstream media have reported on the ongoing and evolving threats to our elec-

tions, which could come from foreign adversaries. Our goal is to have the training

modules in place for the 2020 elections cycle, so at a minimum election judges in

Maryland will be trained to identify, respond to and mitigate potential cyber, physical

and insider threats as they may evolve and happen at a polling place. Election judges

are the first line of defense, so enabling them to interact with the process in a mean-