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About Chad Ratashak

From the Midwest, Focused on the Midwest​

Chad Ratashak is from central Iowa. Chad has been interested in the law, languages, and cybersecurity for a long time. In high school, Chad was a Page in the Iowa House of Representatives. In college, Chad majored in Arabic. In his career and personal interest, he has continued to learn about natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs), the technology behind AI tools like ChatGPT. He has worked on cybercrime topics like ransomware and deepfake impersonation, and he was the Private Sector Leader for the Department of Homeland Security’s Public-Private Analytic Exchange Program (DHS AEP) 2022 Ransomware Attacks on Critical Infrastructure. Now, he is combining those interests in starting Midwest Frontier AI Consulting to address the unmet need for AI expertise in Iowa and the Midwest.

Intelligence Analysis and Artificial Intelligence​

Chad has worked as an intelligence analyst on topics including counterterrorism, anti-money laundering, and cybercrime, and covered generative artificial intelligence since 2023. Chad provided numerous talks on AI to internal audiences to collectively well over a thousand employees in his former role at a major financial institution, including:

  • Special guest speaker at the Finance Transformation Office's Automation Day in October 2023
  • Two live virtual presentations for the National Insider Threat Awareness Month (NITAM) in September 2024; these were the best-ever attended NITAM sessions according to the Insider Threats team
  • Lunch & Learns for various functions from Commercial Banking to Consumer Lending to Financial Crimes Investigations Chad created two recorded trainings available to all of the FI’s employees, which addressed use cases and emerging risks:
  • Introduction to Generative AI
  • Generative AI for Financial Crimes and Cybersecurity

Public Speaking on Gen. AI and Financial Crimes​

Chad has also spoken to external audiences like:

  • A class at the Naval Postgraduate School about generative AI
  • Association of Certified Financial Crimes Specialists (ACFCS) about terrorism finance and ransomware
  • Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) about ransomware
  • Chad participated in the Department of Homeland Security's Analytic Exchange Program (DHA AEP)
    • DHS AEP Ransomware Attacks on Critical Infrastructure (2022), Chad was the Private Sector Leader
    • DHS AEP Illicit Use of Cryptocurrency, Phase II (2023); Chad was invited by the Phase I group

Educational Background: Academic Excellence and Language Focus​

As a National Merit Scholar, Chad studied at the University of Oklahoma, earning a 5-Year BA/MA in International Studies with a Double Major BA in Arabic and International Studies. Chad studied abroad in Morocco. He is fluent in the Moroccan and Levantine dialects of Arabic; he previously hosted a bilingual podcast on the linguistics of Moroccan Arabic called Mazyan Bizaf Show. Chad’s knowledge of Arabic and linguistics has helped with cybersecurity concepts in large language models (LLM), such as token smuggling, indirect prompt injection, and jailbreaking via foreign languages and non-Latin scripts.