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May 2023

CCI graduate students Gustovo Zanatta Bruno (foreground) and Vikas Krishnan Radhakrishnan present CCI research at IEEE INFOCOM last week.

A Message from the Executive Director

Dear <<First Name>>,
I am delighted to report that more than 80 Northern Virginia Community College students applied for seven positions with CACI Intl. as part of our new Friends of CCI Project-Based Learning Program.

CACI is the first company to partner with us on the Project-Based Learning Program designed to give students the skills to start successful careers. We’ll learn more about the interns and the CACI projects they’re working on as the program progresses this fall. Sarah Hayes, sshayes@vt.edu, can tell you more about how to bring the program to your school or company.

CCI Internship and Job Fair

Our online internship fair draws several hundred students every year. In response to demand, we’ve added jobs to the CCI Internship and Job Fair, which will be held Sept. 27. It’s a great way to meet potential top employers from around the state. Registration is open now.

Some of the representatives from sponsoring organizations include:

Employers interested in participating can contact Austin Shock, ashock@vt.edu.

CCI internships create
pathways to careers

Kylie Amison, George Mason University class of 2022, gained 2 internships and a full-time job through her involvement with the CCI Entrepreneurship Experiential Learning Program.

If you want to learn how far a CCI internship can take you, watch this video of Kylie Amison, who graduated from George Mason University last year with a B.S. in cybersecurity engineering. Kylie was part of the CCI Entrepreneurship Experiential Learning Program, led by 2023 CCI Impact Award Winner Gisele Stolz. Kylie not only landed a job––she started her own company.

The Commonwealth Cyber Incubator + Accelerator Program (CCl+A)
kicked off this month

Nine teams funded by CCI’s CATAPULT Fund are starting an essential part of the program––learning how to create a commercial product. CCI+A is a 16-week program complete with business development workshops in which CATAPULT-funded team members meet with prospective customers, partners, experienced tech mentors, serial entrepreneurs, and more. It’s part of a process aimed at turning their technologies into successful products, processes, and services.

Meet future cybersecurity leaders

About 200 student researchers involved in CCI-funded research in the CCI Southwest Virginia region presented their discoveries and discussed future plans at April’s Future Cybersecurity Leaders Showcase.

CCI researchers present at
IEEE INFOCOM

CCI xG Testbed Director Aloizio P. DaSilva (fourth from left in photo) led a group of CCI graduate students who presented their research at the prestigious IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM) this month.

The CCI grad students are Gustovo Zanatta Bruno, Jaswanth Sai Reddy, Vikas Krishnan Radhakrishnan, Oren Collaco, and Prateek Sethi.

CCI grad students go on the defensive

Three CCI graduate students whose committees I have chaired defended their theses in the past few weeks. They’re based in the CCI Hub in Arlington and have contributed to the CCI research mission while working on their academic careers. All the students are in the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) at Virginia Tech.

The students are:

Oren Collaco, who defended his thesis “Enabling CBRS experimentation and ML-based Incumbent Detection using OpenSAS.” Advisor: Aloizio P. DaSilva
Vikas Krishnan Radhakrishnan, who defended “Detection of Denial of Service Attacks on the Open Radio Access Network Intelligent Controller through the E2 Interface.” Advisor: Aloizio P. DaSilva
Yi Wei, who defended “Strategic Stochastic Coordination and Learning in Regular Network games.” His original advisor Marcos Muller Vasconcelos is now at Florida State University.

Expect a lot of news in June. We’ll be announcing funded projects for the CyberArts and Experiential Learning programs. You’ll also find the latest news about what’s happening in the CCI network on our homepage and news section.

Congratulations to all graduating CCI students!

Cheers,