Future Cyber Security Educators: Empowering Cadets as Educators
Principal Investigator:
Mohamed Azab, assistant professor, computer and information sciences, Virginia Military Institute
Co-Principal Investigator:
Denis Gracanin, associate professor, computer science, Virginia Tech
Researcher:
David Jones, CyDef research scientist, Virginia Military Institute
Future Cyber Security Educators: Empowering Cadets as Educators
Researchers will implement a comprehensive top-down cascaded training program, Future Cyber Security Educators (FCSE) to train cybersecurity leaders and educators.
This program will include in-depth involvement from stakeholders in academia, government, national defense, and private industry.
It will build on the success of:
- A successful high school and homeschool internship program.
- A Department of Defense (DoD) workforce development grant at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI)
- The VMI Cyber Captain Program (CCP).
- Virginia Tech educational programs such as the Future Faculty Diversity Program.
Experience with these programs has shown that when undergraduate students work solo with online materials, they might not be as motivated or engaged.
The availability of a senior mentor, such as a graduate student, will help VMI cadets get the most out of training materials. The cadets will also learn how to be educators when they train public high school and homeschooled students.
As VMI does not have a graduate program, Virginia Tech graduate students will serve as mentors to manage and supervise the process and provide guidance and feedback to VMI cadets.
This project, among nine experiential learning projects funded for fiscal year 2022-23, is a part of CCI's strategy to provide students with industry experience and enhance their skill sets to better prepare them to enter the cybersecurity workforce.