Fall 2025 Colloquium

Lars McCarter is a Senior Manager at Amazon Security (AmSec). He currently leads a variety of architecture, security governance and policy, regulatory compliance, and enterprise risk management activities for Amazon, AWS, and subsidiaries. His team also executes various privacy and financial fraud detection functions to protect Amazon customers and reduce fraud loss.

Prior to joining Amazon, Lars served twenty years as an active-duty Coast Guard officer in a variety of security leadership positions at the Department of Homeland Security, Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, the White House, and United States Cyber Command where he focused on improving national critical infrastructure resilience. He has 20+ years of people management experience as a leader with oversight of teams of teams of over 350 personnel.

Ron Bushar serves as the Chief Security Officer and Managing Director of Cyber solutions at Google Public Sector. In this role, he leads a diverse global team of cyber experts who empower Google Public Sector to safely and securely deliver customer mission outcomes and deliver Mandiant and Google’s unique platform of innovative security and cloud capabilities and solutions to protect critical missions, infrastructure, and national security interests worldwide.

Bushar is a seasoned, highly effective, and innovative cyber security leader with over 27 years of experience in cyber defense operations, cybersecurity consulting, and incident response services in both the government and commercial sectors. Bushar has a track record of successfully building strategic programs and dynamic teams that deliver innovative cyber solutions, ensure effective security, minimize organizational risk, and ensure mission outcomes for customers.

Prior to his work at Mandiant and Google, Bushar served as the Director of the Department of Justice Security Operations Center (JSOC) where he led transformative efforts to redefine and restructure key information security and cyber defense operation capabilities. Bushar also served as the Department’s Insider Threat Program Manager and liaison to the National Insider Threat Task Force. In previous roles, Bushar built and led expert teams of cyber defense operators, incident responders, and red teams at several U.S. intelligence and defense department agencies. Bushar began his career in the United States Air Force serving as an officer in the Information Warfare Aggressor Squadron.

Amir Bigdeli is an Avionics Lead at K2 Space, a fast-growing startup building vertically integrated satellites. As one of the earliest electrical engineers on the team, he played a key role in architecting the satellite’s core power and avionics systems - including high-voltage to low-voltage DC-DC conversion, and the design of high-power solenoid and actuator interfaces for spacecraft steering and control. He’s currently driving acceptance and qualification of K2’s full satellite platform and payload, targeting launch in Q1 2026.

Prior to K2, he spent a year at Amazon’s Project Kuiper, where he developed custom receive-side phased array hardware, owning integration, power/signal integrity, and system-level design. He began his career at Tesla, where he led end-to-end development of custom interior electronics for the Cybertruck - work that led to two pending patents.

He holds both bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech, with a focus on power electronics. Outside of work, he runs a YouTube channel where he shares hands-on electronics tutorials and engineering insights for early-career EEs.

Dana Viers grew up in a small town called Haysi, located in the coalfields of Southwest Virginia. After high school, he attended Virginia Tech, where he graduated in 2004 with a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering. Since then, he has worked in the broadcast industry and currently serves as a Broadcast Engineering Supervisor for The Walt Disney Company in Washington, DC. 

Wayne Barlow leads Bloomberg’s Terminal Products team and oversees the company’s efforts to evolve the Bloomberg Terminal so that it meets users’ expectations in a rapidly changing technology landscape. Throughout his career spanning more than 30 years in technology and financial services, Wayne has worked in engineering leadership roles focused on artificial intelligence, capital markets, communication and collaboration tools, and software platforms.

Appointed to this position in 2023, Wayne uses his broad technology expertise to drive the development of innovative solutions that make the Bloomberg Terminal a powerhouse of actionable information, connected communities and powerful workflows across the global financial ecosystem. He leads Bloomberg’s strategic business priorities focused on the Bloomberg Terminal user experience, helping global leaders in business, finance and government cut through the complexity of data and make informed decisions about managing risks and seizing opportunities. 

Previously, Wayne was Global Head of Engineering for Markets, Community & AI at Bloomberg, where he directed a cross-regional team of technologists, engineers, and researchers to provide high-impact, ground-breaking software applications for clients. He guided the development of the most heavily used Bloomberg Terminal functions, including the communications and instant messaging (Instant Bloomberg) systems. Wayne also spearheaded the development of the software platforms, frameworks, and programming languages used by Engineering to develop content for the Bloomberg Terminal.

Prior to joining Bloomberg in 2006, Wayne was an executive at Bear Stearns and a software engineer at Digital Equipment Corp. 

Mohammed Alfayyoumi serves as Director of Grid Planning at Dominion Energy, where he leads strategic efforts to modernize and optimize the electrical distribution network. His work ensures grid reliability, resilience, and efficiency, with a strong emphasis on innovation and long-term infrastructure planning to support sustainable energy delivery.

Prior to his current role, Mohammed oversaw electricity production, asset management, maintenance, outage planning, and regulatory compliance for a diverse fleet of natural gas, oil, and biomass generating stations totaling over 1,700 megawatts.

Since joining Dominion Energy in 1999 as a Distribution Planning engineer, he has held a variety of leadership roles across Distribution and Transmission Planning, Operations, and Six Sigma.

His career milestones include serving as Manager of Electric Transmission Field Operations (2008), Manager of SOC Operations (2012), and Director of the Electric Transmission System Operations Center (2013). He transitioned to the Power Generation group in July 2019 before assuming his current position in July 2024.

Mohammed has actively contributed to numerous industry committees, panels, and working groups, and has served on the boards of several local non-profit organizations. He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology, a master’s in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech, and an MBA from the University of Massachusetts. He is also a Certified Six Sigma Master Black Belt.

He resides in Midlothian, Virginia, with his wife and two sons.

Amit Puri, an award-winning entrepreneur and business leader within the global aerospace sector, has spent more than two decades developing technology for the world's most high-profile space missions, including the International Space Station, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Space Shuttle, and the James Webb Space Telescope. An internationally recognized authority on spacecraft communications protocols, Amit has collaborated with virtually every major domestic and international space agency and has deployed technology on every continent, including Antarctica. 

Amit Puri currently serves as President & CEO of Kurtek, an engineering firm that focuses on creating and promoting space interoperability technologies. He was previously the President & CEO of Ingenicomm, a cross-market aerospace product and service provider with a unique corporate philosophy of leveraging advanced space-based technologies to unleash innovation for the benefit of mankind. Under Amit’s leadership, Ingenicomm rose to become one of the fastest-growing companies in the region, receiving numerous accolades such as the Fast 100 Asian-American Company, Future Fifty, Technical Trailblaizer, Smart CEO Voltage, Smart CEO Corporate Culture, INC 5000, and the Best Places to Work in Virginia Award, leading to Amit’s selection as a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2017.

Amit currently supports a number of non-profit, corporate, and academic institutions as a board director, advisor or trustee. Most notably, he advises Virginia Tech in various capacities including his support to the Puri Satellite Ground Network (PSGN), named after the Puris.

Kim Puri is a federal executive with the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Diplomatic Technology. She is responsible for the enhancement of U.S. foreign policy by providing secure and modern information technology and services to diplomats and the Department. She is a staunch advocate of fostering innovative, effective, and interconnected diplomacy by constantly improving, modernizing, and refreshing the Department's tools and services. 

She has a proven track record of shepherding in new IT solutions that provide access to collaborative tools and enable mobility, while simultaneously protecting information and IT assets against evolving cyber threats and vulnerabilities. 

With over twenty five years of federal service, she has harnessed the rapid changes in technology to transform how diplomats advance U.S. foreign policy by altering the way they connect with others and communicate information.