Dr. Marie-Helen Maras is a tenured Professor at the Department of Security, Fire, and Emergency Management and the Director of the Center for Cybercrime Studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. She is also a faculty member of the graduate program in Digital Forensics and Cybersecurity at John Jay and a faculty member of the PhD program in Criminal Justice at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her academic background and research cover cybersecurity, transnational crime (e.g., cybercrime, smuggling of migrants, and trafficking in persons and drugs), transnational security issues (e.g., war and terrorism), and the legal, political, social, cultural, and economic impact of digital technology. She is the Director and Principal Investigator (PI) of a National Institute of Justice grant (app. $600,000) and two Bureau of Justice Assistance awards (totaling more than $1.6 million). She is also the co-PI on two NSF grants focused on improving cyberinfrastructure at the college and enhancing institutional cybersecurity research talent (app. $400,000). Dr. Maras serves as a subject matter expert and consultant on cybercrime and cyber organized crime for UNODC.

Dr. Maras is the author of numerous peer-reviewed academic journal articles and books, including Cybercriminology (Oxford University Press, 2016); Computer Forensics: Cybercriminals, Laws, and Evidence (now in its second edition; Jones and Bartlett, 2014); Transnational Security (CRC Press, 2014); CRC Press Terrorism Reader (CRC Press, 2013); and Counterterrorism (Jones and Bartlett, 2012), among other publications. She is currently working on books on Cyberlaw and Cyberliberties, Transnational Crime, and Human Trafficking Today (the latter two books focus on the evolution of these crimes and the facilitation of these crimes by the Internet and digital technology), as well as other projects with Oxford University Press. Prior to her academic post, she served in the U.S. Navy for approximately seven years gaining significant experience in security, international investigations, and law enforcement from her posts as a Navy Law Enforcement Specialist and Command Investigator. During the early stages of her military career, she worked as an Electronics and Calibration Technician.