PA Community College Consortium Cooperative Agreement (PC4A)
On September 15, 2022, IUP was awarded the largest grant in its history to increase cybersecurity education in Pennsylvania from the US Department of Defense. Six community colleges have partnered with IUP for the three- to six-year project, with the goals of increasing certification rates, increasing transfer rates from two-year to four-year colleges, and increasing employment within the Department of Defense and the Defense Industrial Base. See complete details on the PC4A project website.
Chinese Language Immersion Program for Cybersecurity Students
In academic year 2023–24, IUP received nearly $1 million from the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (NCAE-C) to establish a pilot program for cybersecurity students to develop language foundations and proficiency in Chinese. The program consists of two components. The first is a 10-week summer camp to be offered in summer 2024 and will involve immersive experiences for all participants. The second component is a series of online follow-up activities throughout AY 2024–25 to emphasize the knowledge and skills developed during the summer camp. See complete details on the program page.
Autonomous Risk Mitigation for Zero-trust Architectures (ARMZTA) Project
In academic year 2022–23, IUP received funds in a competitive program, NCAE-C in Cybersecurity Education Research Innovation 2022, that is supported by the National Security Agency to conduct a novel multi-year research project focusing on risk mitigation in zero-trust environments. See complete details on the ARMZTA page.
IoT Anomaly Detection Research Project
In academic year 2020–21, IUP received funds in a very competitive federal program, NCAE-C Cyber Curriculum and Research 2020 Program, which is supported by the National Security Agency to conduct state-of-the-art research study focusing on improving IoT systems' security. See complete details on the IoT Anomaly Detection Research Project.
DoD Cyber Service Academy
In response to a lack of skilled cybersecurity professionals, the Department of Defense created a scholarship program for highly qualified college students to encourage them to expand their cybersecurity knowledge and gain the skills needed to be successful in the cybersecurity field.
Project Director Waleed Farag and his team successfully pursued securing funds for this scholarship program. Since the start of this program in 2018, IUP has received 63 scholarships in this very competitive national program. Benefits of this scholarship program include full tuition and fees waiver, books, a laptop, and a $29K stipend to cover additional living expenses. See complete details on the IUP DoD CSA Project.
IUP GenCyber Cybersecurity Summer Program
The National Security Agency and the National Science Foundation have partnered to create a cybersecurity summer program for K-12 students and teachers, focusing on increasing interest, diversity, and knowledge in cybersecurity.
In summer 2016, Project Director Waleed Farag and his team were successful in securing funds to host the first and only GenCyber summer camp in Pennsylvania, allowing students and teachers from the surrounding community to expand their cybersecurity knowledge and skills, at no cost to them. Since then, IUP has received funding to hold several additional camps in every year since then, all of which have been successful in achieving the goals of the GenCyber program. For complete details of the GenCyber summer program, including detailed information about the upcoming 2023 GenCyber summer camp, please visit the IUP GenCyber Summer Program Pages.
NCAE-C PhD Cybersecurity Scholarship
In academic year 2022-23, IUP received funds from the National Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Program, a part of the Department of Defense in partnership with the National Security Agency. The scholarship program supports a qualified doctoral candidate who is seeking a degree in cybersecurity. See complete details on the NCAE-C PhD Scholarship page.
DoD Capacity Building Project
Since 2019, IUP, along with a selected group of national universities, continues to receive funding from the Department of Defense in support of the Capacity Building Project focusing on finding additional ways to recruit more students to enter the cybersecurity workforce. See complete details on the DoD Capacity Building Project Pages.
IUP Expansion of Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Education Program
In 2017, the National Security Agency announced a new national initiative focused on expanding cybersecurity education at national Centers of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity (CAE-C). In response to this initiative, Farag and his team carefully designed a program that identified and addressed the challenges faced in cybersecurity education using research, tutoring services, weekend workshops, and a summer camp to achieve the goals of the program.
The Expansion of CAE-C Education Program was successfully funded by the NSA and ran for the entirety of academic year 2017–18. For complete details on this project, including tutoring resources, workshop and research documents, as well as grant statistics, please visit the IUP Expansion of CAE-C Education Program Pages.
IBM Center for the Business of Government: Defining and Understanding Cyberspace
In 2013, Dighton Fiddner, professor of Political Science (ret. 2018) was awarded a grant from the IBM Center for the Business of Government for his project titled "Decision Making Implications of Defining and Understanding Cyberspace." This grant was designed to help accurately define cyberspace, utilizing round table discussions that were attended by faculty, students, and industry leaders. The topics of these roundtable discussions focused on how decision makers in government and industry can better handle and respond to security threats.
Cyber Catch Scholarship Program
In 2000, the National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security announced a new scholarship program titled CyberCorps Scholarship for Service. This program provides funds for college students to pursue an education in cybersecurity, and upon graduation, find employment within the Federal Government.
In 2012, William Oblitey, professor of Computer Science (ret. 2017), Rose Shumba, professor of Computer Science, and Jennifer Gossett, professor of Criminology designed a program that addressed the growing need for cybersecurity professionals, and successfully received funding for the IUP Cyber Catch Scholarship program. This program provided support for tuition reimbursement, stipends, and allowances for cybersecurity majors and minors. This program ended in fall 2018. For more details regarding this grant, please visit the Cyber Catch Scholarship Program page.