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Irena Bojanova (Fed)

Computer Scientist

Irena Bojanova is a Computer Scientist at NIST and the Inventor, PI, and Lead of the NIST Bugs Framework (BF) (https://usnistgov.github.io/BF/; NIST SP 800-231 Bug Framework (BF): Formalizing Cybersecurity Weaknesses and Vulnerabilities). Previously, she was a Professor in Information Technology at the Johns Hopkins (JHU) Carey Business School, a program chair at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), an academic director at the JHU Center for Talented Youth (JHU-CTY), and a co-founder of  Object Builder Software (OBS) Ltd.-- now Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), Bulgaria). She earned her Ph.D. in Mathematics/ Computer Science from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1991. Her research interests are in formal methods and cybersecurity.

Bojanova is an IEEE Senior Member and an Editor in Chief (EIC) Emeritus, Advisory Board Member of the IEEE IT Professional magazine, and Member at Large of the IEEE Computer Society (CS) Publications Board Executive Committee. Previously she was Chair of the Magazine Operations Committee (MOC) of the IEEE CS, an ex officio member of the IEEE CS Board of Governors (BoG), EIC of the IEEE IT Professional magazine,  Editor of the Cybersecurity Department of the IEEE IT Professional magazine, Editor of the Education column of IEEE Computer magazine, EIC of the IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, Committee on Integrity Chair of the IEEE CS Publications Board, and the founding chair of the IEEE CS Cloud Computing Special Technical Community (STC). She has also served as a General Chair of IEEE CS ISSRE 2015, QRS 2017, and STC 2017 & 2022, 2023 conferences, and the IEEE CS COMPSAC 2018-2022 IT in Practice Symposium.

Publications

Hardware Security Failure Scenarios

Author(s)
Peter Mell, Irena Bojanova
Historically, hardware has been assumed to be inherently secure. However, chips are both created with software and contain complex encodings (e.g., circuit...

Measuring the Exploitation of Weaknesses in the Wild

Author(s)
Peter Mell, Irena Bojanova, Carlos Eduardo Cardoso Galhardo
Identifying the software weaknesses exploited by attacks supports efforts to reduce developer introduction of vulnerabilities and to guide security code review...
Created October 23, 2018, Updated July 29, 2026
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