Presidential Lecture Series

The Rocky Mountain College Presidential Lecture Series seeks to bring prominent speakers to campus for thought-provoking conversations about diverse topics from experts in their field. These lectures offer our students, faculty, staff, and community an exceptional opportunity to learn from nationally-recognized leaders who offer unique insight into the trends, events, and innovations that shape our world. The series launched in Fall 2019 with a presentation on blockchain technology with tZERO Vice President of Product Development, Rob Christensen. The lectures are open to the public.

April 2 - Jeffrey Mader "Privacy in the Digital Age"

People’s everyday interactions are mediated by some form of technology. We do our banking on the computer, our shopping on a tablet and we communicate with each other via text. Throughout all of these interactions we leave a massive trail of digital fodder which, in its aggregate, tell a detailed story of our day-to-day lives. Marketing companies have turned the collection and analysis of this data into a multi-billion dollar industry. An industry that feeds on your personal information and has rendered privacy in the digital age nearly impossible.

Jeffrey is Director of Identity Management at Halo Privacy and on the Board of Directors at The Penrose corporation.  Having supported US Special Operations and the Intelligence Communities for more than twenty years, he has recently made the transition to assisting private and corporate clients with their privacy and security needs. Jeffrey has a bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University, an MBA from the George Washington University, and is a PhD Candidate at Oklahoma State University.

Jeffrey has suggested the following articles as useful reading to prepare for the lecture:

• Gary Kovacs: Tracking Our Online Trackers -  Ted Talk
• Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy - The New York Times
• Behind the One-Way Mirror: A Deep Dive Into the Technology of Corporate Surveillance - Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Your Apps Know Where You Were Last Night, and They’re Not Keeping It Secret - The New York Times
• Data brokers are selling your secrets. How states are trying to stop them. - The Washington Post