(Purdue Today) Dr. Eugene H. Spafford, executive director of CERIAS and professor of computer science, received the Morrill Award for outstanding career achievement. This new annual award was presented at the Faculty Awards Convocation on April 26, 2012.

In honor of the 150th anniversary of the federal Morrill Act, which allowed for the creation of land-grant colleges and universities, the Office of the Provost gave four Morrill Awards to faculty members who have excelled as teachers, researchers and scholars, and in engagement missions. The awards are named for Justin Smith Morrill, the Vermont congressman who sponsored the 1862 legislation that bears his name.

Each Morrill Award recipient receives a $30,000 prize, which may be used as discretionary funds or as salary supplements.

Dr. Spafford is a professor of Computer Sciences at Purdue University, a professor of Philosophy (courtesy appointment), and is Director of the Center for Education Research Information Assurance and Security. CERIAS is a campus-wide multi-disciplinary Center, with a broadly-focused mission to explore issues related to protecting information and information resources. Spaf has written extensively about information security, software engineering, and professional ethics. He has published over 100 articles and reports on his research, has written or contributed to over a dozen books, and he serves on the editorial boards of most major infosec-related journals.

Dr. Spafford is a Fellow of the ACM, Fellow of the AAAS, Fellow of the IEEE, and is a charter recipient of the Computer Society’s Golden Core award. In 2000, he was named as a CISSP, honoris causa. He was the year 2000 recipient of the NIST/NCSC National Computer Systems Security Award, generally regarded as the field’s most significant honor in information security research. In 2001, he was named as one of the recipients of the “Charles B. Murphy” awards and named as a Fellow of the Purdue Teaching Academy, the University’s two highest awards for outstanding undergraduate teaching. In 2001, he was elected to the ISSA Hall of Fame, and he was awarded the William Hugh Murray medal of the NCISSE for his contributions to research and education in infosec. Among his many activities, he is co-chair of the ACM’s U.S. Public Policy Committee and of its Advisory Committee on Computer Security and Privacy, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association, and is a member of the US Air Force Scientific Advisory Board.