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Chris Edmundson

Chris Edmundson has been employed in the information technology arena for over 25 years, working in a wide variety of roles, primarily in the public sector related to administration of K-12 public schools and at higher education institutions. He currently manages the Security Operations for the Office of Information Technology at the University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus. Chris is an Associate Instructor teaching SEC488: Cloud Security Essentials.

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Previously, Chris led enterprise architecture and application administration for the Middleware, Identity and Access Management efforts at the University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus and was the Information Security Officer at the Colorado Department of Education where he was involved with managing and implementing security practices for approximately 10 years.

While working for the State of Colorado, Chris was inspired to dig into cybersecurity when he and many others were invited to contribute to an initiative for increasing the level of security for the state government agencies.  Chris started his journey with SANS as a facilitator over a decade ago and he’s been intrigued ever since moving through the ranks as a course technical reviewer, TA, regular presenter, and associate instructor.

As one who relishes growing and learning, Chris is drawn to teaching cloud security, as by its nature is novel and ever-changing, which makes it an interesting topic to teach. He is constantly challenging himself to keep up with industry changes by being involved with cloud security practices. Chris likes to bring own his experiences to the classroom as well as facilitate having students share their experiences, believing in the old adage, "it takes a village". We certainly learn much from each other.

Chris believes, like most SANS cloud security instructors, that the biggest challenge in cloud security is the dynamic nature of the industry. To address those challenges, Chris encourages students to engage with the wealth of free resources provided by SANS Cloud Security Curriculum, stay involved with the SANS Cloud Security Alumni groups, along with reading documentation, keeping up-to-date through events like SANS CloudSecNext Summit, and attending vendor related events related to their organization.

The highlight of Chris's career so far has been his recent involvement as a mentor with the International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals (ICMCP) through SANS CyberTalent Diversity Cyber Academy (DCA) program. He revels in seeing these students "light up" and get so excited about their future in cloud security. He is also a faculty member of the SANS Technology Institute, an NSA Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense and multiple winner of the National Cyber League competition.

In addition to his work with SANS, Chris serves as an advisor on degree programs in data science and cybersecurity through the Campus Computing Task Force at the University of Colorado Denver, is a member of the C3 Cloud Enablement Planning and Working Committee for the University of Colorado and has presented at numerous conferences & committees such as the Rocky Mountain Oracle Users Group (RMOUG), Oracle Open World, and the Governor’s Office of Information Technology (State of Colorado). Chris currently holds several GIAC certifications, including the GISP, GSEC, GCFA, GSLC, GCIH, GSNA, GPEN, GMOB, GICSP, and GCCC certifications.  He has also obtained certifications in ITILv3 for IT Service Management, TOGAF for Enterprise Architecture, and the CCSK certification from the Cloud Security Alliance.

Chris feels very fortunate to live in Colorado, where he can climb fourteeners, go fly fishing, hunting, and camping with his family.  When not in the mountains, Chris also enjoys scuba diving, and of course, playing with technology as much as he can.

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