Asaf Cidon’s interests lie in the areas of distributed storage systems, machine learning for systems, and cybersecurity. Prior to joining Columbia, he was Senior Vice President of Email Protection at Barracuda Networks, where he was responsible for all email security and archiving products. He joined Barracuda after it acquired his startup, Sookasa, where he was the CEO and co-founder. His research on distributed storage systems was adopted in commercial systems of several companies, including Facebook, Tibco, and Hortonworks. He obtained his PhD and MS in Electrical Engineering from Stanford and BS in Computer and Software Engineering Cum Laude from the Technion. He is a recipient of SC Media’s Rising Star Award and a Sohnis Promising Scientist Award.