Collaborative Research: EAGER: SaTC-EDU: Artificial Intelligence-Enhanced Cybersecurity: Workforce Needs and Barriers to Learning

The intersection of artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity is emerging as an important field to ensure the integrity of the economy and critical infrastructure. Industry and government organizations require a workforce that is well-trained in both AI and cybersecurity. Courses and workshops are emerging to meet this need, but there is no published work addressing the content that needs to be taught and how to teach that content to develop a workforce at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity.

This project addresses the gap in our understanding of how to prepare the workforce to apply AI to problems in cybersecurity by identifying workforce needs and developing solutions to learning barriers that could prevent broad participation in AI-enhanced cybersecurity. The project will create and disseminate an AI-enhanced cybersecurity course for advanced undergraduate and master's students and contribute new knowledge at the intersection of AI, cybersecurity, and education.

This project will identify workforce training needs for AI-enhanced cybersecurity through interviews with industry experts. This will inform the development of a course for master's and advanced undergraduate students that addresses gaps in existing cybersecurity curricular frameworks. The hands-on course will serve as a testbed to identify key conceptual challenges, prerequisites, and compelling examples of AI-enhanced cybersecurity.

The course will train students at the University of Washington Bothell in crucial AI-enhanced cybersecurity skills. Additionally, the project seeks to identify opportunities to broaden participation at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity. A better understanding of how computing majors perceive courses and careers in AI, cybersecurity, and the intersection of the two can inform efforts to broaden participation in AI-enhanced cybersecurity.

This interdisciplinary collaboration will also prepare the project team to engage in education research at the intersection of AI and cybersecurity.

This project is supported by a special initiative of the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program to foster new, previously unexplored, collaborations between the fields of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and education. The SaTC program aligns with the Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Strategic Plan and the National Privacy Research Strategy to protect and preserve the growing social and economic benefits of cyber systems while ensuring security and privacy.

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.