CyberCorps Scholarship for Service: Preparing Future Cybersecurity Professionals with Data Science Expertise

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As increasingly sophisticated and varied cyberattacks become common, it is crucial that well-trained and agile cybersecurity professionals enter industry and government positions. These professionals should be adept at analyzing the enormous amounts of data generated by modern computing systems to facilitate processing at the scale and rates necessary to identify new attacks. The CyberCorps(R) Scholarship for Service (SFS) project at Fordham University will help address these workforce needs by providing scholarships to educate a new breed of cybersecurity professionals trained in data science methods and tools. Fordham SFS recipients will earn an M.S. in Cybersecurity with either a concentration in Data Science or an Advanced Certificate in Data Science for Cybersecurity. The program will afford students a well-rounded cybersecurity education, including its technical and ethical components, which are vital for government positions. The project team will leverage recent awards made to Fordham focused on increasing diversity, including GenCyber and National Security Agency Cybersecurity Education Diversity Initiative awards. These and other efforts by the project team aim to increase the participation of groups who have thus far remained underrepresented in the cybersecurity workforce.The goal of inspiring new cybersecurity personnel towards a career in government service will benefit from Fordham’s collaboration with numerous government agencies, its small class sizes, and numerous opportunities to participate in research and outreach activities, such as cyber-defense competitions. Students will have the option of pursuing a cyber-operations or a policy/law/management track for the cybersecurity coursework. Data science coursework will provide students with the programming skills, tools, and experience required to manipulate, analyze, and visualize large and complex datasets. The student-centered curriculum that leverages the synergies between the traditional cybersecurity and data science curricula will result in cybersecurity professionals who are well-prepared to meet evolving cybersecurity threats to our nation’s information systems and data infrastructure. This project is supported by the CyberCorps(R) Scholarship for Service (SFS) program, which funds proposals establishing or continuing scholarship programs in cybersecurity and 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.