Collaborative Proposal: Capacity Building in Cybersecurity: Broadening Participation of Women In Cybersecurity through Women in Cybersecurity Conference & Professional Development

University Of Memphis, Memphis TN

Investigators

Abstract

As a capacity building effort to increase the pipeline of women security professionals, this project is working to build momentum toward a movement of proactive efforts to diversify the cybersecurity workforce. For the first time, Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) conferences are being organized. It is a unique effort to bring together women from different levels in academia, industry and government to promote recruitment, retention and progression of women in cybersecurity. Tennessee Tech University is leading this collaborative partnership with the National Centers for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education at the University of Memphis and at Jackson State Community College. Apart from orchestrating the WiCyS conference, project activities include: development and deployment of "Discovering Cybersecurity" workshop for raising students, awareness of and interest in cybersecurity careers; development and deployment of "Facilitating Active Learning in Cybersecurity" workshop for faculty professional development, post-conference research apprenticeship in security for students; networking and mentoring platform through WiCyS online community. The project is assessing how its various activities contribute to increase: undergraduate women's awareness of and interest in pursuing further study in cyberseccurity, faculty expertise using active learning strategies to teach cybersecurity, female students' participation in security internships and security research experiences and female students' recruitment into the CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service Program. The intellectual merit of this project is to provide substance and practice that has the potential to be continually used to increase awareness as well as capabilities of a greater cybersecurity workforce, with special emphasis on women who are underrepresented in computing fields and especially in cybersecurity. Full participation of a diverse workforce is crucial to integrate more creativity and multi-perspective problem solving to shape technology in cybersecurity. As a part of the expected broader impact, this project contributes to increase in the ability of the United States higher education enterprise to produce diverse group of cybersecurity professionals.