Faisal Kaleem

Recent and upcoming courses

Fall 2024

• CYBR 698: Cyber Operations Capstone Project
• CYBR 332: Computer Security
• CYBR 641: Cyber Operations Fundamentals

Spring 2025

• CYBR 698: Cyber Operations Capstone Project
• CYBR 332: Computer Security

Biography

Faisal Kaleem received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Florida International University (FIU), Miami, FL. Since 1998 he has served as an educator in various institutions. He joined Metropolitan State University in 2014, where he currently serves as a professor in the Computer Science and Cybersecurity Department.

Dr. Kaleem established MNCyber—a statewide initiative to position Minnesota as a national leader in cybersecurity through education, innovative public/private partnerships, interdisciplinary research, and community engagement. He is currently serving as the Executive Director of MNCyber. He is also the co-founder and executive member of the Minnesota Cyber Career Consortium (MNC3), whose mission is to address Minnesota’s cybersecurity workforce needs and help Minnesota businesses handle cyber risks.

Dr. Kaleem has been instrumental with the National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber (NCAE-C) programs and the National Initiative on Cybersecurity Education (NICE) for the past few years. He has been an active member of the cyber community at the local, regional, and national levels.

Dr. Kaleem has been a recipient of numerous awards from various institutions as follows:

• Best Professor Awards

• Best Course Awards (cybersecurity)

• University-wide Faculty Awards for Excellence in Teaching

• Community Engaged Scholarship Award

• Student Group Advisor of the Year Award

• Minnesota State Board of Trustees Outstanding Educator Award

• Visionary Academic Leader Award by the MN Cybersecurity Summit

Dr. Kaleem serves as an advisory board member to various organizations such as Minnesota Cybersecurity Summit, Cloud Security Alliance Minnesota, and National Cybersecurity Student Association. He maintains membership with various professional organizations such as IEEE, ISACA, and FBI-Infragard. He is also a member of various honor societies such as Tau Beta Pi, Eta Kappa Nu, and Golden Key International Honor society.

He is the faculty advisor for the Cybersecurity and Forensics Students Organization (CFSO) at Metropolitan State University and mentors and advises the university’s Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) team.

He is currently certified by various industry organizations, such as CISSP, CEH, Security+, MCT, CCLO, and CCPA.

During his free time, he provides various Internet safety workshops for parents and children.

Dr. Faisal Kaleem is an experienced lifelong cybersecurity practitioner. His current research work is to identify key characteristics of cybersecurity learners through the use of Augmented Reality (AR) in addition to identifying AR’s privacy issues. His other research interests include multiple cybersecurity aspects, including cybersecurity and forensic curriculum development, Computer and Network Security, mobile device security and forensics, and mobile malware analysis and attribution.

In the past few years, Dr. Kaleem has developed and taught several courses (Ethical Hacking, Digital Forensics Engineering, Mobile Device Forensics, Malware Reverse Engineering, etc.) in cybersecurity. Dr. Kaleem recently designed and developed many degrees and certificate programs, including the BS in Cybersecurity and MS in Cyber Operations at Metro State University.

He is the recipient of many grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Security Agency (NSA), private sectors, and grants from the state of Minnesota. He continually engages both undergraduate and graduate students in his research work and in publishing peer-reviewed research papers.

One of his biggest contributions to the University and the State of Minnesota is to establish the MN Cyber Range. The MnCyber Cyber-Range is a cutting-edge emulation and training platform that delivers hyper-realistic training scenarios that dramatically improve cybersecurity team performance. The Range also provides an effective testbed for researching new vulnerabilities and assessing the security posture of new technologies and architectures in a safe and controlled environment. From incident handling and response to security operation center onboarding to malware forensics and intrusion detection, training on MNCyber Range will lead to fewer incidents, faster responses, lower recovery costs, and lower recruitment/retention costs for your cyber team.