Dr. Wilbanks currently serves as the Senior Advisor for Cyber Security at Federal Student Aid (FSA) within the Department of Education. FSA manages $1.3 trillion dollars in student debt for 45 million students; Dr. Wilbanks responsible for developing a risk management program to identify and manage all cyber security risks for the data and networks. For the past 4 years Dr. Wilbanks served as the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at FSA. She supported the security of the electronic financial transactions required by FSA, protecting against internal and external threats and vulnerabilities and was responsible for the management of all network breaches including the loss of Personally Identifiable Information. She was also responsible for ensuring all FSA applications and external partner networks were compliant with the Federal cyber security requirements. Dr. Wilbanks is also an Adjunct Professor at Towson University, MD, teaching cyber security.
Prior to coming to FSA, Dr. Wilbanks served as the Command Information Officer (CIO) at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) where she successfully built a common IT backbone and green data center with virtualized servers supporting all five DOD law enforcement /security agencies occupying a new campus and shared services (DSS, DIA, CID, OSI, NCIS) and provided desktop services to agents internationally located. Dr. Wilbanks also served as the CIO at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) where she was responsible for all aspects of IT for U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and plants and implemented major changes including the termination of field office networks and building a new classified network and facility, on time and within budget. Dr. Wilbanks also was the manager for the software quality assurance research program at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) where her work revolutionized the launch review program by including software as a key component. She then advanced to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for GSFC where she implemented IT business functions, program management and developed the first strategic plan. Prior to joining federal service, Dr. Wilbanks taught mathematics and computer science, starting at the high school level and concluding at the graduate level.
Dr. Wilbanks hold a Bachelors degree in Mathematics and Secondary Education from Towson University MD, a Masters degree in Engineering Science from Loyola University MD and a Doctorate in Computer Science from University of Maryland Baltimore. She is recognized internationally as an expert in software metrics and quality assurance, has published over 125 articles in referred journals(some under Linda H. Rosenberg), spoken at many conferences, and published a chapter on managing IT in the book, Harnessing Green IT. She is also an associate editor for the IEEE journal IT Professional and is a member of the advisory boards for the international IEEE organization and for Towson University.