The Coordinated Information Technology and Assurance Development and Education Laboratory (CITADEL) at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology (NMT) provides an intellectual high ground for the education, training, practical application of information security and assurance. CITADEL trains students to become leaders, not merely practitioners, in the increasingly important field of information assurance and security. CITADEL provides faculty enhanced opportunities to work with the best students and researchers at government agencies and coordinates the efforts of NMT's CAEIAE, Information Technology Program, the Computer Science Department, and NMT's ICASA (Institute for Complex Additive Systems Analysis) division. This continuation of the current SFS scholarship program includes a customized course sequence to match the scholar's area of interest and research in information assurance and security, research and professional development, and mentoring components.
Intellectual merit. CITADEL brings the expertise of NMT's interdisciplinary faculty together with talented students to address real applications of information assurance and security. Current research topics include Adaptive Control and Dynamic Systems, Agent-based Financial System Modeling & Simulation, Applications of Soft Computing, and Network Security and Performance. By participating with faculty researchers, SFS scholars are learning to address current and future applications of information assurance and security. CITADEL expands the educational program by integrating substantial student research in information assurance.
Broader impacts. The CITADEL program increases the representation of Native Americans, Hispanics, and women in information assurance and security. Of the 24 SFS scholars currently participating in the NMT program, three are Native Americans, one is Hispanic, one is Asian American, and five are women. To build on this success, recruitment and retention programs are being updated to further improve on the diversity of the student body.
New Mexico Tech's CITADEL: Coordinated Information Technology and Assurance Development was funded by NSF Award 0313885, with continuing funding from NSF Award 0621363. This work has enhanced information assurance / cyber security education at New Mexico Tech for many students, both supported Scholars and others. Enhancements include courses in Digital Forensics, Network Forensics, and Special Topics courses that advance understanding of current topics such as Advanced Big Data Analysis, Social Computing, Data Mining, Information Privacy in Mobile and Graph Computing, Sensor Networks Security, and Usable Security. These grants have provided 97.5 academic years of support for student Scholars. The Scholars who completed the program have already "paid back" 221.5 years of service. Note that this includes one student who has not yet started paying back his service commitment (he will graduate this year), but does not include as service the internships all students have served. This indicates that NMT’s Scholars have served more years than their commitment required (and they continue to do so). Only seven Scholars are known to have left government service (after serving on average 2.25 times as many years as their required years to pay back support). Of the 49 students supported by the two grants, 9 were female, 3 were Hispanic, and 4 were Native American. This is an important statistic for a technical area where diversity has been lacking. Sample agencies that have hired NMT Scholars include: NSA, DHS, DISA, SPAWAR - Charleston, Railroad Retirement Board, Army Corp of Engineers, Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory. Many of these Scholars have led important security developments. Some of these Scholars have contributed to national security to the level that they have brief the President of the United States or Congress. NMT's program has been recognized by Dr. Paller, the director of research at the SANS institute: "Some of [the SFS institutions] are putting out extraordinary, great technical people," he said, citing the University of Tulsa, New Mexico Tech and George Washington as examples."
