Dr. Guillermo A. Francia, III received his BS in Mechanical Engineering degree from Mapua Tech in 1978. His Ph.D. in Computer Science is from New Mexico Tech. Before joining Jacksonville State University (JSU), he was the chairman of the Computer Science department at Kansas Wesleyan University. Dr. Francia is a recipient of numerous grants. His projects have been funded by prestigious institutions such as the National Science Foundation, Eisenhower Foundation, Department of Education, Department of Defense, and Microsoft Corporation. In 1996, Dr. Francia received one of the five national awards for Innovators in Higher Education from Microsoft Corporation. Dr. Francia served as a Fulbright scholar to Malta in 2007. He has published articles and book chapters on numerous subjects such as Industrial Control Systems Security, Machine Learning, Vehicle Security, Computer Security, Digital Forensics, Regulatory Compliance, Educational Technology, Expert Systems, Computer Networking, Software Testing, and Parallel Processing. He received the prestigious US-UK Cybersecurity Research award to research on critical infrastructure security at Imperial College London in 2017. Dr. Francia is the former Director of the Center for Information Security and Assurance and Distinguished Professor at JSU. Currently, he is serving as Faculty Scholar and Professor at UWF's Center for Cybersecurity.

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Dr. Francia's research interests include Vehicle Security, Industrial Control Systems/SCADA security, Radio Frequency (RF) security, Renewable Energy and Microgrid security, Compliance and Auditing, Applied Machine Learning, Blockchain Technology, and Embedded System security.