CyberCorps Scholarship for Service: Building Research-minded Cyber Leaders

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This project will establish a new CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service (SFS) program at Brigham Young University (BYU). Over the next five years, this project will support 23 undergraduate and graduate students studying Cybersecurity. These future cyber leaders will enter the government workforce with a strong grounding in cybersecurity's technical and human dimensions. SFS undergraduate and graduate students will have opportunities to participate in faculty-mentored research, BYU’s Security Operations Center (SOC), a new CyberClinic, cybersecurity and networking clubs, competitions, career fairs, government internships, and outreach efforts. In addition, this project will enable strategic enhancements at BYU designed to increase the cybersecurity student diversity profile, build a strong community among SFS students, and promote student research. This will, in turn, provide the government with an increasingly diverse set of capable, well-connected graduates ready to solve the cybersecurity challenges of today and the future.The BYU SFS program is designed to motivate students to become ethical cyber leaders in government, raise the visibility of cybersecurity programs and opportunities at BYU, and further develop partnerships with government agencies. The project will support an SFS student research symposium, a government cybersecurity career event tied to BYU’s STEM Fair, and new diversity outreach efforts that will better integrate efforts across campus (e.g., BYU Engineering BE Together, Women in Cybersecurity Club, CS Belonging, Women in Computer Science, BYU Multicultural Student Services) and the community to recruit more women, minorities, and first-generation students into the field. A new Cybersecurity SFS Seminar will help build a community among SFS students and faculty and bring in experts from other universities and government agencies. Students participating in research will work with faculty studying high-priority areas, including AI and cybersecurity, human aspects of cybersecurity, embedded systems security, network security, and cybersecurity education. Graduate SFS students will complete a rigorous thesis centered around a cybersecurity topic, helping prepare them for cutting-edge research within government institutions.This project is supported by the CyberCorps® 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.