This project seeks to establish a new CyberCorps®: Scholarship for Service (SFS) program at the Worcester Polytechnic (WPI) Institute to prepare highly-qualified Cybersecurity professionals for entry into the federal, state, local, and tribal government workforce.
The proposed CyberCorps®: SFS program features (a) coursework that includes technical courses, a business course, and at least one course on human-facing aspects of cybersecurity; (b) opportunities to participate in research projects; and (c) a monthly seminar series on ??Working in Cybersecurity for the Government??. WPI also has existing collaborations with two nearby federal labs, MITRE and Lincoln Labs, and its interdisciplinary graduate programs in Robotics, Interactive Media and Game Design, Data Science, and Learning Sciences offer scholars the opportunity to connect cybersecurity studies with other emerging computational fields. WPI is designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research with a dozen faculty across four departments with active research programs related to cybersecurity. A team consisting of two Program Directors, a program manager, and several security faculty will manage the operations and assessment of the program. The project has clear objectives for both scholars and project operations, along with the measurements that will assess progress towards the objectives. CyberCorps students will take a security-themed course with a significant focus on human behavior, privacy and policy extending beyond purely technical aspects of cybersecurity.
All SFS-Scholarship awards share broader impacts on cybersecurity workforce development. The planned recruiting activities will engage hundreds of students and may motivate more students in pursuing at least some level of cybersecurity education. The proposed seminar series will be open to the public. The recruiting plans include participating in established WPI outreach programs to high-school students, summer residential programs to engage students in STEM and an annual WPI science and technology festival that centers on a NASA robotics challenge. The project has a strong plan for recruiting women and other under-represented students.
