Allen Phelps is a board-certified security professional who has focused his career on establishing Research Security Management Programs and Insider Threat Management Programs to safeguard intellectual property, research, trade secrets and other types of proprietary information assets from loss, theft, and misappropriation. He is currently the founder and CEO of IPTalons, Inc., a managed research security service provider focused on protecting research personnel and related innovation assets in the academic, corporate, and government sectors.

His corporate research security management work includes the establishment of a trade secret protection program at Merck & Co., a large innovative research-based pharmaceutical company, that has been cited as the best-in-class security program focused on protecting pharmaceutical trade secrets and building research compliance resiliency. Allen also served in a research security training role at the Texas A&M University System, and served almost two decades with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in various roles.

Allen has a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, a Master’s degree in Security and Safety Leadership, and is a Certified Protection Professional (CPP), a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), a Professional Certified Investigator (PCI), a Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE) and a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA).

Michael (Mike) Shannon is the Executive Vice President – Government Solutions for IPTalons. He retired from the Federal Senior Executive Service as the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Management Assessment (OMA), within the Office of the Director NIH. As the chief risk, compliance, audit, and investigative officer for NIH, Mike built investigations, enterprise risk, and internal controls for the nearly 50 billion in research program funds NIH administers. He served on the charter senior advisory group and the executive committee for the formation and initiation of the FBI, National Counterintelligence Task Force. 

Mike spent many years as a Deputy Inspector General for DoD and is a retired Counterintelligence Reserve Officer in the intelligence and policy directorates (J2/J5) Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has been a Senior Advisor on policy, intelligence collection, open-source analysis of foreign activity excelling at counter exploitation and countermeasure development. His task force memberships, global accomplishments, awards, and strategic impact on U.S. national security policy, administration and government affairs are numerous. 

He is a self-described “Policy Nerd” having developed, written, and promulgated countless government and organizational policies on many controversial and sensitive topics. He holds a Master of Policy Management (MPM) from Georgetown University as well as a Master of Public Administration (MPA) and a certificate in Forensic Accounting. His undergraduate degree is in Communications and Psychology. Mike is currently completing his PhD in Public Administration. 

Carl Taylor spent 30 years serving the United States as a Military Intelligence Commissioned Officer in the U.S. Army, and as a civilian Special Agent / Intelligence Officer with the Department of Defense.  Carl’s focus was counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and counterproliferation investigations and operations.  As a military officer he held investigative, operational, staff, and command positions.  Carl’s civil service career included investigative, operational, senior leadership positions, as well as three joint duty assignments within the U.S. Intelligence / Law Enforcement Community. Carl is a combat veteran and deployed outside the United States throughout his career to perform intelligence operations. He also has over 20 years’ experience working with industry and the academic community protecting research and development programs.

He retired from the U.S. Government in 2015 as an Assistant Director of a U.S. Defense Agency. After retiring he was hired as the Chief Security Officer for the University of Kansas (KU), which also
included developing and leading the Office of Global Operations & Security (GOS). GOS is responsible for security management, export compliance, and risk/threat identification university wide. GOS develops and implements strategies to reduce risk and ensures a safe and secure academic / research environment.

During his 7.5 years at KU, he provided research security program assistance to other academic institutions, the U.S. Government, and was frequently requested to speak on the subject of starting and maintaining security programs. Carl was also a co-Principal Investigator for KU’s U.S. Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence (ICCAE) Program, a Director of National Intelligence grant, and was on the Executive Board for the Association of University Research Security Professionals, formerly known as the Academic Security and Counter Exploitation Program (ASCE).