Tolgay Kizilelma, PhD, Director of MSC Pgm, Dominican University of California

Dr Kizilelma is a business-driven IT, Cyber, GRC leader with three decades of experience covering Higher Education, Healthcare, Government, and Private sector. He is the founding Director of the MS in Cybersecurity program and teaches online Cybersecurity GRC courses as an Associate Professor of Cybersecurity in the Barowsky School of Business at Dominican University of California. He is an adjunct at Saint Mary’s College of California teaching for their MSBA and PMBA programs. Tolgay also held multiple CISO roles at University of California. He is an accredited ISACA trainer and has more than 50 industry certifications, a B.S. degree in computer engineering, an MBA, and a Ph.D. focusing on information security. He also volunteers for various non-profit organizations as a board member focusing on education, awareness, training, and community outreach efforts. At ISACA Sacramento, he held Government Advocacy Relations and Academic Relations Director roles and now is serving as the president. His contribution to the cybersecurity community was recognized with the 2022 C100 Award –Top 100 CISOs by CISOs Connect. His current research interests are cybersecurity, privacy, IT risk, compliance, business analytics, and educational IT programs.