CyberCorps Scholarship for Service: Cybersecurity Workforce Preparation

The nation is facing a significant shortage of well-trained and well-prepared cybersecurity professionals. To meet this workforce need, the CyberCorps®: Scholarship for Service (SFS) program at Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech) will train 20 undergraduate and graduate SFS scholars over a five-year period. These highly-skilled SFS scholars will be ready to enter the government's cybersecurity workforce upon graduation.

Michigan Tech offers a number of high-quality cybersecurity and computing degree programs and faculty actively conduct externally supported research in emerging areas including cyber-physical systems, mobile computing, and network architecture. Michigan Tech also has a long history of offering cybersecurity outreach activities to K-12 teachers and students and of providing excellent career services for college students.

The SFS program will create a supportive learning community to help these students complete their college education and join the cybersecurity workforce.

The SFS program at Michigan Tech is a joint effort of multiple departments and programs. SFS scholars will be chosen from seven computing undergraduate majors and one cybersecurity master’s degree program. The SFS program allows multi-disciplinary study and broader participation with a mix of flexible curriculum tracks, including undergraduate majors and minors in cybersecurity and accelerated or regular master’s degrees in cybersecurity.

The SFS program will also include student mentoring, training, and management activities, as well as coursework and personalized academic advising. Students will be mentored through individual meetings and group meetings, undergraduate/graduate research, professional development workshops, cybersecurity competitions/conferences, and outreach activities.

In addition, the SFS program will collaborate with the Pavlis Honors College at Michigan Tech that affords students opportunities to design their own honors experience and participate in a dynamic learning community. The SFS program will recruit and retain underrepresented groups including women, minorities, first-generation / low-income students, and persons with disabilities.

Throughout the project period, the project team will evaluate the effectiveness of conducted activities and achievement of job placement goals. The formative and summative assessment results will be used to refine the SFS program and apply best practices. In addition, project outcomes and evaluation results will be disseminated nationwide to help peer institutions and government agencies adopt best practices in cybersecurity education.

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.