Randy Baden received his B.S. in 2005 and his Ph.D. in 2012, both from the University of Maryland. His brilliant mind for security research resulted in award-winning papers on some of the very first work on securing online social networks. In his real-life social network, his excitement was contagious, and he regularly brought different circles of friends together to share in his favorite movies, TV shows, and video games. Following his own creative pursuits, he wrote and published two fantasy novels while completing his PhD in Computer Science.