During the award period, 2014-2020, the CyberCorps SFS program at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) focused on meeting the US demand for well-qualified and well-rounded cybersecurity professionals. As laid out in the proposal, the program’s principal investigators (PIs) motivated excellent RIT students working toward their BS degrees in Computer Science, or Computing Security, or Software Engineering, convincing them to pursue an accelerated BS/MS program leading to the MS in Computing Security. The program graduated 26 students with BS/MS degrees, with strong breadth and depth in diverse areas of cybersecurity and the ability to address the nation’s ongoing needs in protecting cyberspace. The RIT CyberCorps SFS program has been highly successful, having achieved 100% internships and 100% placements, as monitored by the federal Office of Personnel Management. Around a quarter of the graduating RIT CyberCorps scholars were female.

Cohorts had scholars majoring in three disciplines of computing (Computer Science, Computing Security, or Software Engineering), which reflected the home departments of the three PIs. RIT CyberCorps scholars took cybersecurity-relevant courses offered by the three departments, which provided part of the broad crosscutting experiences to make the graduates ready to apply their cybersecurity knowledge and skills holistically. To complement their RIT education, the scholars attended a wide variety of conferences, such as DefCon, Blackhat, and ShmooCon, as well as earn professional cybersecurity certificates, such as Offensive Security Certified Professional (OSCP). Several scholars also participated in national collegiate cybersecurity competitions, such as the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition and the Collegiate Penetration Testing Competition, a hallmark of the overall RIT cybersecurity learning experience. These activities were supplemented with a weekly seminar led by the PIs, where students actively participated in cutting-edge cybersecurity presentations by external cybersecurity experts, the three PIs, as well as by the CyberCorps scholars themselves. All of these activities strengthened the overall cybersecurity preparation of the RIT CyberCorps scholars while on campus, thus making them ready for national service.

 Another defining characteristic of the RIT CyberCorps experience was its emphasis on community and K-12 outreach by the PIs and the CyberCorps scholars. The scholars and the PIs presented a variety of cybersecurity educational exhibits at the Imagine RIT festival, an annual event that showcases RIT student and faculty creativity and innovation; pre-pandemic, the event typically attracted over 30,000 visitors. During each summer of the grant period, the PIs also offered GenCyber camps aimed at rising 8–12th graders, sometimes supported by RIT CyberCorps scholars. The RIT GenCyber day camps received accolades for their focus on a hands-on cybersecurity curriculum offered in a manner accessible to the K-12 audience. Several camp alumni have now become RIT students where they are pursuing a variety of computing programs, including computing security; in fact, in Fall 2020, the first RIT GenCyber alumnus became an RIT CyberCorps scholar as soon as he qualified as a junior. Additional outreach activities conducted during school years allowed scholars to interact with students in Rochester area elementary, middle, and high school students through hands-on cybersecurity activities in their classrooms; during after-school clubs; visits to the RIT campus; and presentations at school science fairs. Even during the current pandemic, with the appropriate use of video conferencing, the RIT CyberCorps scholars have been able to reach broader audiences of over 100 K-12 students. These outreach activities by the RIT CyberCorps scholars and PIs have had broader impacts by educating a wide US audience about real-world cybersecurity problems and their solutions, as well as by motivating the next generation of younger students into pursuing cybersecurity careers.

Last Modified: 03/31/2021
Modified by: Bo Yuan