IUCRC Phase I Virginia Tech: Center for Cyber Science, Management, Applications, Regulation, and Training (Cyber SMART)

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

Cyber SMART is the first cybersecurity IUCRC and the first to combine cutting-edge computer science expertise with advances in the social sciences to address emerging cyber issues, challenges, and opportunities. The Virginia Tech site addition expands Cyber SMART into the telecommunications and federal sectors, supplementing the current expertise in the market segments of financial services, insurance, and supply chain logistics for manufacturing and trade and fraud investigation, detection, and prevention. It increases the depth and breadth of research opportunities and outcomes and training in a range of disciplines and will inform the development of policy, standards, and regulation. The Virginia Tech Cyber SMART site addition objectives are focused on communications security, U.S. government policy related to telecommunications, trust and privacy, visualization, and standards, especially in multimedia emergency communications, trustworthy generative AI for secure system operation, confidential computing, and data governance in the cybersecurity hiring ecosystem. This site brings prowess in mathematics, electrical and computer engineering, business, systems engineering, public policy, and economics to bear, and complements current Center expertise in distributed ledger technology and standards, secure information systems, artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity and secure communications, quantum computing, finance/economics, business management, digital identity, cyber law/regulation, policy, psychology and ethics. The Virginia Tech Cyber SMART site addition will leverage the investigator team’s ongoing efforts to broaden the talent pipeline in cybersecurity, serving as primary recruitment tools for Center projects and as platforms for sharing the mission of the Center with potential members. This includes a new socio-technical residential cybersecurity community and an internship fair. The Center involves students in all research projects. The site will increase the current Center impact, benefiting industry, individuals who use products and services, educators and scholars, regulators, and society. The Virginia Tech site addition will contribute to the Cyber SMART project repository which includes research data, code, results, emulators, simulators, and scientific papers. 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.