CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service (Renewal): Carolina Cyber Defender Scholarship Program

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This project is building on an existing effort at the awardee institution which has successfully recruited, educated, and placed diverse undergraduate and graduate students into cybersecurity positions in government agencies. This renewal project will recruit and educate an additional 22 undergraduate and graduate students in government agencies, committing to place over 80% of its graduates in federal executive agencies. The renewal will continue an established collaboration with Forsyth Technical Community College, enabling three new cohorts of community college students to complete their undergraduate degrees at UNC Charlotte. Project activities will improve curricula and organizational programming and benefit a large number of cybersecurity and computing students at the two institutions. All graduates from these degree programs will, in turn, provide critical cybersecurity skills to the organizations that employ them, both within the government and the private sector.Students in this project will undertake a breadth of experiences, including an innovative cybersecurity curricula, hands-on training opportunities through courses and cybersecurity competitions, research opportunities with faculty in various cybersecurity problem areas, and student leadership and community service through multiple cybersecurity-focused student clubs at UNC Charlotte and Forsyth Technical Community College. The project team will focus on expanding education and research in cyber defense training, usable security and privacy, and cyber analytics. The project team will also expand activities in the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyberphysical systems and expand its evaluation capability. Course materials and exercises from the three focus areas will be shared broadly. The shared materials will expand faculty capacity at SFS-supported projects and cybersecurity programs at other institutions, to train students in cyber defense, usable security, and cyber analytics. Project evaluation materials will also provide other SFS sites with enhanced ability to improve their programmatic efforts, benefitting students at institutions around the country.This project is supported by the CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service (SFS) program, which funds proposals establishing or continuing scholarship programs in cybersecurity that aligns with the U.S. National Cyber Strategy to develop a superior cybersecurity workforce. Following graduation, scholarship recipients are required to work in cybersecurity for a federal, state, local, or tribal Government organization for the same duration as their scholarship support.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.