Photo of Sahar Farshadkhah
Department(s):
Management Information Systems
Title(s):
Assistant Prof.
Office Location
UHB 4087
Phone Number
217-206-6067
Email
sfars2@uis.edu

Dr. Sahar Farshadkhah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management Information Systems (MIS) at UIS. She teaches Cybersecurity Management and MIS courses at the graduate level.

She earned a doctorate at Louisiana Tech University in Business Administration with a concentration in Computer Information Systems. She has five years of work experience as a Senior Business Analyst in well-known companies before finding her enthusiasm for doing research in the IS field to serve both academia and industries. Dr. Farshadkhah’s main research interest focuses on cybersecurity. Her research centers on understanding behavioral aspects of cybersecurity and helping organizations mitigate information security violations and increase employees’ information security awareness and compliance. She is also interested in cybersecurity pedagogy research in order to improve the cybersecurity classroom experience. Her research has been published in high-quality peer-reviewed IS journals such as Computer & Security, Communication of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS), and Journal of Computer Information Systems and presented at prestigious conferences such as AMCIS, HICSS, and ICIS.


Education


DBA Computer Information Systems, Louisiana Tech University - Ruston, LA, USA (2020)

MSc IT Management, Alzahra University - Tehran, Iran (2012)

BSc Industrial Management, Allameh Tabataba'i University - Tehran, Iran (2009)


Awards and Honors


UIS Early Career Scholarship Award (2023) - University of Illinois Springfield

UIS Faculty Engagement Award (2022) - University of Illinois Springfield

Teacher of the Year Award (2022) - College of Business and Management (CBM) at UIS

The Best Paper Award (2018) - The Pre-ICIS Annual Workshop on Information Security and Privacy (WISP) (San Fransisco)


Selected Journal Publications


  • Farshadkhah, S., Maasberg, M., Ellis, T.S., Van Slyke, C. (2024). "An Empirical Examination of Employee Information Security Advice Sharing." Journal of Computer Information Systems (JCIS). Vol. 64: Iss.1, 31-46. (ABDC: A ranked).


  • Young, J., Farshadkhah, S. (2023). “Teaching Tip: Hook, Line, and Sinker – The Development of a Phishing Exercise to Enhance Cybersecurity Awareness,” Journal of Information Systems Education (JISE). Vol. 34: Iss. 4, 347-359. (ABDC: B ranked).


  • Young, J., Farshadkhah, S. (2022). “Teaching Cybersecurity Incident Response Using the Backdoors & Breaches Tabletop Exercise Game,” Cybersecurity Pedagogy & Practice Journal. Vol. 1: Iss.1, 4-17. (A high-quality emergent journal).


  • Farshadkhah, S., Van Slyke, C., Fuller, B. (2021), “Onlooker Effect and Affective Responses in Information Security Violation Mitigation”, Computers & Security, Vol. 100, 102082. (ABDC: A ranked).


  • Stafford, T.F., and Farshadkhah, S. (2020). “A Method for the Interpretively Synthesizing Qualitative Research Findings,” Communications of the Association for Information Systems. Vol. 46: Iss.1, 117-133(ABDC: A ranked).
Research

Dr. Farshadkhah’s main research interest focuses on cybersecurity. Her research centers on understanding behavioral aspects of cybersecurity and helping organizations mitigate information security violations and increase employees’ information security awareness and compliance. She is also interested in cybersecurity pedagogy research in order to improve the cybersecurity classroom experience.