2025 Ellis Lecture Series

Wendy Cassidy has served as a Special Agent with the United States Secret Service for 21 years, dedicating 14 of those years to investigating national and international financial fraud and cybercrimes. Her expertise spans a broad spectrum of criminal activity including counterfeit currency, identity theft, mortgage fraud, credit card abuse, bank fraud, network intrusion, business email compromise, ransomware, access device fraud, crypto fraud, elder fraud, and child exploitation cases. Through her work with the Cyber Fraud Task Force over the past 8 years, Agent Cassidy has been instrumental in recovering over $64 million in fraudulently lost funds for individuals, businesses, and organizations.

In addition to her investigative work, Agent Cassidy serves as a designated liaison, participating in more than 200 cyber, fraud, and security events, including presentations, tabletop exercises, and panel discussions. She regularly engages with academia, corporations, financial institutions, law enforcement agencies, and the healthcare sector to promote awareness and collaboration in combating cybercrime and fraud.

Beyond her professional responsibilities, Agent Cassidy is deeply committed to community outreach. She volunteers as a USSS Ambassador for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), where she teaches students, parents, and educators about internet and online safety.

Agent Cassidy holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Texas and a law degree from the University of Houston Law Center. Before joining the Secret Service, she served as a prosecutor for the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston, Texas.

 

Stefan Hare currently serves as a Network Intrusion Analyst with the U.S Secret Service. He is based in the U.S Secret Service Dallas Field Office as a part of the North Texas Cyber Fraud Task Force. His role includes community outreach, incident response, and digital forensics.

Prior to joining the U.S Secret Service Mr. Hare was a cybercrime Detective for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office. Mr. Hare supported numerous law enforcement investigations utilizing skills and training received from the U.S Secret Service National Computer Forensics Institute. Mr. Hare earned a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement Administration.

 

Teresa Merklin is a Fellow attached to the Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Cyber Range. That facility is chartered to perform highly specialized cybersecurity testing and evaluation of DoD embedded avionics systems. In that capacity, she is designated as the technical lead for Cyber Risk Assessment across the complete portfolio of Aeronautics platforms. She has 30+ years of career experience, starting out in embedded software development which evolved over time into her current role in cybersecurity. 

Teresa’s primary areas of focus are Engineering for Cyber Resiliency and Cyber Risk Assessment. She is the author of the Aeronautics Cyber Resilience Systems Engineering (ACRSE) Guidebook which provides a conceptual overview of integration of Cyber Resiliency Engineering techniques throughout the acquisition, development, and sustainment lifecycles. She is also the creator of cyber assessment techniques including Mission Impact Assessment (MIA) and Cyber Check-Up. She is skilled in multiple Cyber Risk Assessment methodologies currently in use in the DoD as applied to LM Aeronautics Programs.

Teresa has a BSEE from Oklahoma State University, a Masters of Software Engineering from Texas Christian University, and a Masters of Business Administration with a concentration in Information Assurance from the University of Dallas. She is also certified as a CISSP and CSSLP. 

 

Donovan Farrow founded Alias in 2010. He brings more than 20 years of experience working for Schlumberger Oilfield Services, Loves Travel Stops, Chesapeake Energy and NTT Security in the fields of Information Technology, Information Security, Digital Forensics and Incident Response. Farrow currently serves as CEO of Alias. He has provided digital forensic analysis in more than 2,100 court cases, 160 incident response engagements, 250 penetration tests, was appointed Special Master by the Court, sits on the Oklahoma City Community College Advisory Board, and is ACE, PCE, CCE, and GCFA certified.

With Farrow’s leadership, Alias received national recognition in the Inc. 5000 List of Fastest Growing Companies of 2022. Farrow is a member of The Journal Record’s 19th class of Achievers Under 40 and was named one of Oklahoma’s Most Admired CEOs in 2022. In addition, Farrow was awarded the “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” Award at the Tulsa Small Business Summit and Awards Ceremony in 2018.