UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Dongwon Lee, professor in the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), has been named Frymoyer Chair in Information Sciences and Technology, efficient July 1. The Frymoyer Chair acknowledges excellent tutorial achievement and helps continued excellence in analysis, scholarship and graduate schooling.
The three-year appointment supplies a school member in the College of IST with the chance to proceed and additional scholarly excellence by contributions to instruction, analysis and public service with the intent to foster the use, advantages and effectiveness of data sciences worldwide.
“I am deeply honored to be appointed the Frymoyer Chair,” Lee stated. “This recognition is especially meaningful given the chair’s distinguished history and the colleagues who have held it before me.”
The present holder is Anna Squicciarini, professor in the College of IST’s Department of Privacy and Cybersecurity Informatics. Previous holders embrace Jack Carroll, distinguished professor emeritus in the College of IST, and Vasant Honavar, IST professor and Penn State’s vice provost for synthetic intelligence (AI).
Endowed in 2000 by the Frymoyer Foundation — which is led by Edward Frymoyer, emeritus member of the College of IST Dean’s Advisory Board and president of Frymoyer Holdings Inc. — the chair was one of many first endowed tutorial positions created in the then-School of IST.
“Dongwon is an internationally recognized scholar whose work has had a lasting impact on institutional excellence, research innovation and academic community-building,” stated Andrea Tapia, dean of the College of IST. “This professorship, combined with his role as inaugural head of IST’s Privacy and Security Informatics Department, will further advance his leadership in research, education and governance. We are deeply grateful to Ed for the important Frymoyer Chair and the opportunities it creates for outstanding faculty like Dongwon.”
Lee, who holds a doctoral diploma in pc science from UCLA, joined the College of IST in 2002. His earlier administrative roles in IST embrace director of doctoral packages and appearing interim affiliate dean for analysis. He was a Fulbright Cybersecurity Scholar hosted by the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom in 2022, and has served as a school customer at establishments throughout the globe.
Lee’s analysis lies on the intersection of cybersecurity, knowledge science and social computing. His analysis staff, the Penn State Information, Knowledge, and Web (PIKE) Research Group, focuses on info integrity, together with AI alignment, misinformation detection, AI-text detection and social media fraud mining. He will increase on that work in Germany this summer time by way of a completely funded fellowship from the Center for Advanced Internet Studies and Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy.
Lee is at the moment main a team of Penn State students in the 2026 Amazon Nova AI Challenge global finals, competing in opposition to 9 elite college groups worldwide, and he serves because the principal investigator of the U.S. National Science Foundation CyberCorps Scholarship for Service Program at Penn State. He is also affiliated with the Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence.
He is the creator or co-author of greater than 260 convention papers and journal articles. His printed analysis has been honored with finest paper awards at technical conferences, and his work has been coated by main press retailers comparable to The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The New York Times, amongst others.
“My research has long focused on making information ecosystems more trustworthy, secure and resilient — from misinformation and deepfakes to AI safety and hallucination to AI-enabled cyber threats,” Lee stated. “I am grateful to the college for its support and look forward to using this opportunity to advance impactful research, mentor the next generation of scholars and contribute to the college’s continued leadership at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity.”
Penn State is shaping the way forward for increased schooling in the age of synthetic intelligence. Our focus is on human-centered, moral AI innovation that delivers significant impacts for Penn State and the broader neighborhood. Through visionary planning, strategic partnerships, focused hiring and strategic investments, we are going to equip each Penn State pupil, workers member and school member with the AI-related data, expertise and confidence they should succeed in the AI-powered future. Learn extra at Penn State’s website on AI.