Anuja Sonalker

About Anuja Sonalker

Dr. Anuja Sonalker is the founder and CEO of STEER Tech, LLC, which develops self-driving car technology. STEER is focused on building products that will massively enable situationally aware, cyber robust automated driving. Dr. Sonalker brings together experience from both the automotive industry as well as the cyber security sector. Prior to STEER, Sonalker was V.P of Engineering and Operations for TowerSec, an automotive cyber security company that was acquired by Harman International in 2016. Prior to TowerSec, she headed the Automotive Security Group in the Cyber Innovation Unit at Battelle, where she lead advanced research in vehicular environments and transition to market strategies. During her career Dr. Sonalker has established collaborative research efforts and strategic partnerships, provided project management and helped set the strategic direction for the commercialization of technology. Dr. Sonalker is currently the Vice Chair of the SAE Vehicle Cybersecurity Systems Engineering Committee and a subject matter expert on the joint ISO-SAE Automotive Security Engineering Committee. Dr. Sonalker is committed to developing our next generation workforce and mentors young women and high school children to pursue careers in engineering. She holds a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland College Park, a Master of Science in Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Bachelor of Engineering from the University of Mumbai.

Gaurav Bansal

About Gaurav Bansal

Gaurav is a Senior Researcher at the Toyota InfoTechnology Center in Mountain View, CA, where he leads several research initiatives on the design of communication systems for Automated Driving. Gaurav is an expert in Vehicular Communications, pioneering contributions in Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) congestion control and in innovative use-cases to leverage connectivity in cars. His current research interests also include millimeter wave & full-duplex wireless communications. Gaurav represents Toyota in the Automakers’ Vehicle Safety Communication Consortium and in the SAE, ETSI standardization bodies. Gaurav's paper on DSRC Congestion Control received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE WiVEC Symposium. He also holds several patents in the field. Gaurav serves in the editorial board of IEEE Communication Surveys and Tutorials Journal and IEEE Connected Vehicles Initiative. Gaurav holds Electrical Engineering degrees from Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and The University of British Columbia.

Gang Qu

About Gang Qu - Panel Chair & Moderator

Gang Qu received his Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2000. He is currently a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Institute for Systems Research, University of Maryland at College Park. He is also a member of the Maryland Cybersecurity Center and the Maryland Energy Research Center. Dr. Qu is the director of Maryland Embedded Systems and Hardware Security (MeshSec) Lab and the Wireless Sensors Laboratory. His primary research interests are in the area of embedded systems and VLSI CAD with focus on low power system design and hardware related security and trust. He studies optimization and combinatorial problems and applies his theoretical discovery to applications in VLSI CAD, wireless sensor network, bioinformatics, and cybersecurity.