How does one celebrate a cybersecurity win?
With a sheet cake, of course.
Six professors from the J.B. Speed School of Engineering, the College of Arts & Sciences and the College of Business sliced up some cake at a recent meeting to discuss two UofL cybersecurity programs funded by a new $580,000 grant from the National Security Agency. The programs will be offered beginning in the spring 2018 semester and are aimed at reaching working professionals and members of the law enforcement community.
One program will teach cybersecurity measures to public safety employees and another will use common off-the-shelf hardware and software to design new cybersecurity teaching methods. They will be offered online and on-campus through occasional Saturday class meetings.
The interdisciplinary programs are an extension of the University of Louisville Cyber Security Initiative. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency designated UofL as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE); that designation was recently extended through 2019.
“The University of Louisville offers related undergraduate degrees in criminal justice, computer information systems with a concentration in information security and a graduate certificate in cybersecurity that is available online,” said Adel Elmaghraby, professor and chair of the Speed School’s computer engineering and computer science departments, who is principal investigator on the grant.
The other program team members are:
- Michael Losavio, professor, criminal justice (A&S) and computer engineering and computer science (Speed);
- Adrian Lauf, assistant professor, computer engineering and computer science (Speed);
- Rodney Brewer, instructor, criminal justice (A&S);
- John Reed, assistant professor, criminal justice and associate director of the Southern Police Institute (A&S);
- Jeff Hieb, assistant professor, engineering fundamentals (Speed);
- Ghiyoung Im, associate professor, computer information systems (COB); and
- Andrew Wright, assistant professor, computer information systems (COB).
“We are all geared up to enhance our cybersecurity education offering and help fill the skills gap in this area of national priority,” Elmaghraby said.
