Nicole Beebe

  • Dean College of Computing, Professor of Information Technology and Management

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Nicole Beebe has nearly twenty years of experience in academia, preceded by several years in private industry and twelve years of service in the U.S. Air Force. Beebe’s research interests relate to cybersecurity, cyber analytics, and digital forensics, with applications to insider threat detection and analysis, IoT security and forensics, and cyber threat hunting. She has published nearly 60 peer-reviewed articles in top journals and conferences that have been cited over 2,700 times. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Department of Homeland Security, various Department of Defense agencies, and several industry partners.

Education

  • Ph.D. Business Administration – Information Technology, The University of Texas at San Antonio
  • M.S. Criminal Justice, Georgia State University
  • B.S. Electrical Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Research Interests

  • Cybersecurity
  • Digital Forensics

Awards

  • Alvarez College of Business 2024 nominee, UTSA Academy of Distinguished Researchers
  • Selected to the 3rd cohort of the iAspire Leadership Academy (NSF funded), 2021
  • Endowed 1969 Commemorative Award for Overall Faculty Excellence, 2019 (UTSA COB)
  • Named one of “15 Innovators Reshaping Texas” by Texas Monthly, Feb 2018
  • UTSA Nominee for Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award, 2015
  • UTSA College of Business Teaching Honor Roll, High Honors, Fall 2014
  • UTSA Nominee for Minnie Stevens Piper Teaching Award, 2014
  • DFRWS International Digital Forensics Challenge, 1st Place, 2012
  • HEB Dissertation Fellowship, 2007
  • University of Texas at San Antonio Fellowship, 2003-2007
  • Top Graduate, 1997, Georgia State Univ., College of Health & Human Sciences
  • Distinguished Graduate, 1995, Michigan Technological University, Air Force ROTC
  • President’s Award, 1995, Michigan Technological University
  • Miscellaneous military awards and decorations (1995-Present)

Publications

  1. Aivazpour, Zahra, Nicole Lang Beebe (2025) “Understanding the Role of Justification Mechanisms in Cyberbullying: Relative Acceptability, Postponed Justification, and Comparative Justification,” Computers in Human Behaviors Reports (19:100704) DOI: 

  2. Bethany, Mazal, Athanasios Galiopoulos, Emet Bethany, Mohammad Bahrami Karkevandi, Nicole Lang Beebe, Nishant Vishwamitra, Peyman Najafirad (2025) “Lateral Phishing with Large Language Models: A Large Organization Comparative Study,”
    IEEE Access (13) pp 60684-60701 DOI: 

  3. Munsinger, Brita, Nicole Lang Beebe, Turquoise Richardson (2023) “Virtual Reality for Improving Cyber Situational Awareness in Security Operation Centers,” Computers & Security (132:C) 

  4. Akello, Patricia, Naga Vemrala, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Nicole Lang Beebe (2023) “Blockchain Use-Case in Ballistics and Crime Gun Tracing and Intelligence: Toward Overcoming Gun Violence,” ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (14:1) pp 1-26

  5. Akello, Patricia, Nicole Lang Beebe, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo (2022) “A Literature Survey of Security Issues in Cloud, Fog, and Edge IT Infrastructure,“ Electronic Commerce Research, (vol 25:2025) pp 705-739.

  6. Villarreal, Albert, Robin Verma, Oren Upton, Nicole Lang Beebe (2022) “Non-destructive data acquisition methodology for IoT devices: a case study on Amazon Echo Dot version 2,” IEEE Internet of Things Journal (5:1)

  7. Silva, Samuel Henrique, Alexis Votto, Ian Scarff, Nicole Lang Beebe, Peyman Najafirad (Paul Rad) (2022), “Deepfake Forensics Analysis: An Explainable Hierarchical Ensemble of Weakly Supervised Models,” Forensic Science International: Synergy (4:1000217)

  8. Maasberg, Michele, Craig Van Slyke, Timothy Selwyn Ellis, Nicole Lang Beebe (2020) “Dark Triad and Insider Threats in Cyber Security,” Communications of the ACM, (63:12) pp 64-80

  9. *De La Torre Parra, Gonzalo, Paul Rad, Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, Nicole Lang Beebe (2022) “Detecting Internet of Things Attacks using Distributed Deep Learning,” Journal of Network & Computer Applications, vol 208(Dec) *2022 Best Paper Award 

  10. Maasberg, Michele, Xiao Zhang, Myung Ko, Stewart Miller, Nicole Lang Beebe (2020) “An Analysis of Motive & Observable Behavioral Indicators Associated with Insider Cyber Sabotage & Other Attacks,” IEEE Engineering Management Review (48:2), pp 151-165

Grants

  1. Principle Investigator, “Research & Workforce Development in the area of Cybersecurity,” $600,000, sub-award from Texas Tech University, primary funding source: DevCom Army Research Laboratory, 1 Aug 2024 – 31 July 2026 (Research)
  2. Principle Investigator, “Quantum Adjacency for Cybersecurity Faculty & Course Development,” $55,000, Quantum Collaborative, 1 Aug 2024 – 31 July 2025 (Education)
  3. Principle Investigator, “Vulnerability Analysis of IoT/IIoT/OT Devices,” $75,000, RPI Group Inc., 1 Mar 2023 – 28 Feb 2024 (Research)
  4. Principle Investigator, “NCFI University Research and Development: AI-Driven Techniques, Tools, and Analytics for Network, Content, and Device Forensics,” $1.72M, US Secret Service National Computer Forensics Institute, 30 Sep 2020 – 29 Sep 2025 (funded to date: $1,359,483) (Research)
  5. Principle Investigator, “Determining how Virtual and Augmented Reality Can Measurably Improve Cyber Situational Awareness,” $94,970, National Security Agency, 15 Sep 2020-30 Sep 2022 (Research)
  6. Principle Investigator, “Cyber Threat Analytic Modeling,” $223,500, Raytheon, 15 August 2019 – 31 July 2020 (Research)
  7. Principle Investigator, “Malware Propagation Modeling,” $149,000, LGS Innovations, 15 December 2018 – 28 February 2021 (Research)