Howard University
Cybersecurity Research Center
Wayne Patterson
Director of the Cybersecurity
Research Center
November 28, 2011
Designation as a National Center of Excellence
 In June of 2011, Howard University and its Cybersecurity Research
Center were designated by the National Security Agency as a:
 Cemter of Academic Excellence in Informance Assurance Education
 Known as “CAE/IAE”
 Howard joins about 125 four-year institutions with this designation: see
http://www.nsa.gov/ia/academic_outreach/nat_cae/institutions.shtml
 We will show what we had to demonstrate to gain this certification

… and what this will mean for Howard
Requirements to Meet
 We had to demonstrate our capability in:
 1. Outreach/Collaboration
 2. Center for Information Assurance (IA) Education
 3. IA Academic Program is Robust and Active
 4. IA as a Multidisciplinary Science
 5. Practice of IA Throughout the University
 6. Student-based IA Research
 7. Number of IA Faculty and Course Load
 8. Faculty Active in Current IA Practice and Research
1.
Outreach/Collaboration
 a. Shared curriculum
 Created entire program at Voorhees
 b. Reciprocity of credits
 With 34 institutions, including 12 MSIs
 c. Sponsorship of workshops
 4, two NSF-sponsored
 d. CAE Collaboration
 Seminars at George Mason and Stevens
 e. Community outreach
2. Center for IA Education
 a. Formal documentation of designation
 Created by Provost Wyche
 b. Hyperlink
 http://www.howard.edu/csl/index.htm
 c. Web site is operational, dynamic, current
 d. IA journals available online
 All ACM and IEEE available
 e. Physical and/or virtual IA labs available
 Mathematica, Sage, WebGoat, Java
3. IA Academic Program is Robust and Active
 Focus at the Bachelors level
 Concentration in MIS bachelor’s program (~6 yrs)
 Focus at the Masters’ level
 Graduate Certificate in Cybersecurity (7 yrs)
 Focus at the PhD level
 New PhD program in Computer Science approved
4. IA as a Multidisciplinary Science
 Modules in non-IA Courses
 International Studies, Law (2), Psych, Business (n)
 Non-IA Courses encourage papers
 Numerous referenced
5. Practice of IA Throughout the University
 University IA security plan
 Provided
 ISSO
 Provided
 Implementation of security plan
 http://www.howard.edu/policy/technology/computeruse.htm
 http://www.howard.edu/technology/faculty.htm
 http://www.howard.edu/technology/students.htm
6. Student-based IA Research
 a. Student papers, theses, dissertations, projects
 19 provided
 b. List of courses that require such
 5 provided
7. Number of IA Faculty and Course Load
 a. Full-time faculty with leadership responsibilities
 Two
 b. Additional full-time faculty with some IA
 Five
 c. Shared faculty
 Nine
8. Faculty Active in Current IA Practice and
Research
 a. Peer reviewed publications
 26 submitted
 b. Published books or chapters
 4 submitted
 c. Grants/funding
 13 submitted
 D. Active in professional societies
 Cyberwatch, ACM, IEEE
 E. Student IA programs
 One
 F. Present at major conferences
 10 submitted
What Will This Mean for Howard?
 Now eligible for certain scholarship programs
 NSF SFS, IASP, IA Capacity Building
 Collaboration urged with other CAEs
 Partnerships to date with Carnegie Mellon, George Mason,
New Orleans, Stevens, Tennessee-Chattanooga, Texas – El
Paso
 Helps in research proposal submissions
 Openings to national intelligence agencies
 NSA, DHS, DOD, NSF, …