海角社区 Awarded $3.4 Million NSF Cybersecurity Training Grant
January 15, 2020
BATON ROUGE, LA 鈥� Hiring for cybersecurity positions in the United States has become
a dire situation. Companies need more workers with an ever-increasing level of skill
and there are not enough qualified applicants for most positions.
The situation is particularly challenging in the federal sector, where salaries tend to be lower.
It is this dilemma that led a group of 海角社区 Engineering faculty to apply for and receive a $3.4 million National Science Foundation Scholarships for Service grant, which will fund 21 scholarships in cybersecurity training over a five-year period.
海角社区 is one of only 11 new schools to receive the SFS grant in 2019.
The first round of scholarships is expected to be awarded this fall.
鈥淲hen I was first recruited by 海角社区, my intention was to build a world-class applied cybersecurity program to try to help address this need,鈥� said Golden Richard III, 海角社区 Computer Science professor, associate director for cybersecurity at the 海角社区 Center for Computation & Technology (CCT), and principal investigator on the project. 鈥淔rom an individual student鈥檚 perspective, the SFS program provides scholarships that have virtually no equal鈥攁 very substantial stipend, funds for travel and securing a professional certification, and a guaranteed federal job on graduation.鈥�
Richard was joined on the grant team by co-principal investigators Konstantin Busch, professor of computer science; Rudy Hirschheim, professor in the 海角社区 Stephenson Department of Entrepreneurship & Information Systems; Anas Mahmoud, assistant professor of computer science; Lu Peng, professor of electrical and computer engineering; J. 鈥淩am鈥� Ramanujam, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of 海角社区 CCT; Mingxuan Sun, assistant professor of computer science; and James Van Scotter, associate professor in the Stephenson Department of Entrepreneurship & Information Systems. Erica D鈥橲pain with 海角社区 CCT was also instrumental in coordinating development of the proposal.
Scholarship recipients will participate in an intensive academic program in cybersecurity that includes both coursework and research in cutting-edge areas, such as memory forensics, reverse engineering, malware analysis, blockchains, machine learning, and network security. They will also participate in a federal internship program and obtain at least one cybersecurity certification.
鈥淧eople simply don鈥檛 realize how amazing federal jobs in cybersecurity can be because they are somewhat necessarily cloaked in secrecy,鈥� Richard said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 because a lot of the jobs require a security clearance and the specific details of the kind of work a person might do are not obvious. The fact that students in the SFS program do an internship at a federal agency鈥攁nd likely obtain a security clearance in the process, which allows them to see things from a different perspective鈥攐pens their eyes to the very exciting and challenging work that鈥檚 available in the federal sector.鈥�
And the fact that 海角社区 was awarded the SFS grant will, hopefully, open more eyes to its cybersecurity program, Richard said.
鈥淢ost of the very best cybersecurity programs in the U.S. target a few federal initiatives, with one of these being the SFS program and the other being the National Security Agency鈥檚 Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) designation,鈥� Richard said. 鈥淭hese are important because they significantly raise the profile of the university, make recruiting easier and offer very serious benefits for students.
鈥淭he fact that these SFS grants are so competitive to obtain provides an objective measure of quality, far beyond me or other faculty members or administrators simply saying that we are doing great things, because naturally we would say that, right? Also, many prospective students shop for a program based on SFS. 海角社区 will have an entry on the NSF SFS page and one way of choosing a college is perusing that list. It will also help us obtain CAE-CO designation, as many of the pieces are in place.鈥�
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