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A Message from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative Executive Director
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Dear Colleagues,
Welcome to our monthly newsletter. The Commonwealth Cyber Initiative is off to a strong start during this challenging year. As funding started to flow in fiscal year 2020, CCI began making good on its promise of establishing Virginia as a global leader in cybersecurity.
The CCI Hub is working to coordinate the entire network while the four CCI Nodes are focused on specific regions in Virginia; collectively, the entire Network is showing how collaboration across Virginia’s higher education institutions can advance research, innovation, and workforce development.
The CCI Hub’s eight faculty members have attracted $19.4 million in new research funding, a 2-to-1 return on investment by the Commonwealth. The four CCI Nodes, which received their funding in February, reported a combined total of $64.3 million in active research grants to support CCI-related research. The CCI FY2020 Annual Report Executive Summary is available here. We’re excited for what’s to come in fiscal year 2021.
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The CCI Fall Webinar Series about AI and Cybersecurity continues to bring outstanding speakers to share their insights with our community. The final webinar in this series will be at 11 a.m. ET Thursday, Nov. 19. Tim O’Shea will discuss using machine learning to optimize and secure wireless 5G, IoT, and more. O’Shea is a research assistant professor at the Virginia Tech Ted and Karyn Hume Center for National Security and Technology and also co-founder and chief technology officer of DeepSig, a venture-backed start-up using machine learning to build wireless capabilities.
Missed a seminar or want to watch it again? You can find past webinars by clicking below or on our YouTube channel. We’re working on the spring series right now. Stay tuned for more information.
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- The CCI Innovation Committee, comprised of representatives from George Mason University, James Madison University, Radford University, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and William & Mary, is working on programs to increase the connections between the research labs of Virginia universities and the vibrant Virginia investment community. These programs aim to benefit and provide innovation opportunities to undergrads, grad students, as well as faculty.
- Led by Mason, the Northern Virginia Node is supporting three Virginia cybersecurity start-ups.
- Internship Spring Seminar: CCI is working with some of the 2020 Experiential Learning Grant awardees to promote their efforts and programs in placing interns in cybersecurity internships or apprenticeships across the Commonwealth.
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Learning by doing can be one of the best ways to inspire students to pursue a career in cybersecurity. CCI’s experiential learning programs are moving ahead. For example, the Coastal Virginia Node, led by Old Dominion University, is holding the INNOVATE Cyber Challenge again this fall after its inaugural run this spring. Twenty students, selected from ODU, Christopher Newport University, Norfolk State University, Paul D. Camp and Tidewater Community Colleges, worked in five separate teams to design their prototypes focused on cyber hygiene awareness.
We’ll continue to build upon our experiential learning focus for Virginia students this fiscal year. You can expect another call for proposals in spring 2021.
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Update on Calls for Proposals
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We’re currently evaluating three recently closed calls for proposals—CCI Cybersecurity Research Collaboration, Arts and Design Collaboration, and CCI Southwest Virginia Node Research, Innovation, and Workforce Development—and plan to have decisions by year’s end. These statewide, multi-university collaborations are at the heart of what makes this initiative uniquely positioned to lead in cybersecurity research.
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I’m pleased to announce Jeff Reed, who was CCI’s interim executive director, has been appointed as CCI’s inaugural Chief Technology Officer. Jeff’s extensive knowledge and experience in wireless communications and commercializing new technology will benefit CCI as we work together to make Virginia a global leader in cybersecurity. Read more about Jeff’s appointment in Virginia Tech News.
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Aloizio Pereira da Silva joins as CCI 5G Testbed Director. Aloizio was the technical project manager and researcher associate at US-IGNITE/NSF Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) Project Office where he managed and orchestrated PAWR testbeds, including AERPAW, POWDER and COSMOS. The CCI 5G Testbed will help speed up advancements in 5G and beyond by providing researchers, government, and industry a destination to try and validate new approaches. Read more about the CCI 5G Testbed here.
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Abdul Rahman will bring his extensive experience to his role as CCI AI Testbed Director. Rahman was chief scientist at Fidelis Cybersecurity, vice president of strategy and technology at Mantech, VP of technical delivery and chief scientist at TexelTek Inc., and held several positions at Booz, Allen, Hamilton, including lead of modeling, simulation, and war gaming. The CCI AI Testbed will help academia, industry, and government evaluate and verify the level of trust and assurance they have in the AI algorithms before they gain wider use.
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Feras Batarseh joined CCI last week as research associate professor AI. He was previously at George Mason University as a research assistant professor and the director of Turing Research, an applied AI research group. His research interests include AI Assurance, AI for policy, data engineering and analytics, context-aware software systems, and democracy and open science.
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CCI Coastal Node Lead Institution
ODU Launches New Cybersecurity School
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It’s fantastic to see the CCI network meet the growing demand for cybersecurity education. Old Dominion University opened its School of Cybersecurity, an interdisciplinary degree program designed for undergraduate and graduate students. CCI Fellow Hongyi Wu will lead the school, which has about 800 students. Formerly known as the Center for Cybersecurity Education and Research, the school started with 11 students.
The ODU School of Cybersecurity is increasing its federal funding along with students. From 2016 to 2020, federal funding grew to more than $6 million from zero. A recently awarded three-year $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation focuses on AI and human collaboration to maintain the safety and security of autonomous driving systems is a good example of ODU’s multidisciplinary approach. Jing Chen from Psychology, Bin Hu from Engineering Technology, and Cong Wang from Computer Science are collaborating on the project, which also supports training graduate and undergraduate students across disciplines.
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Follow us: Social Media and Website
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Following CCI on social media is a great way to learn about what the initiative is doing and contribute to the conversation. Here are links to CCI’s social media accounts: Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. You also can watch CCI webinars on our YouTube channel.
We’re updating the CCI website, including news, events and faculty bios. Please contact Michele McDonald, communications and marketing director, at mmcdonald@vt.edu with any news items, photos, and social media requests.
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Thank you for all of your enthusiasm and dedication during what has become an unprecedented year. Please continue to stay healthy and safe. I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Sincerely,
Luiz DaSilva,
Executive Director
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