The Synergy of Intertwining Grant Activities: Cyber Up! and GenCyber Girls
- Conference
- Location
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Minneapolis, MN
- Publication Date
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August 23, 2022
- Start Date
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June 26, 2022
- End Date
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June 29, 2022
- Conference Session
- Page Count
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15
- DOI
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10.18260/1-2--42103
- Permanent URL
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https://peer.asee.org/42103
- Download Count
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201
Paper Authors
Tobi West Dakota State University
Professor Tobi West is a tenured full-time faculty member of Cybersecurity and Computer Information Systems. She is also the Director of Coastline’s National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense education and serves on multiple national committees supporting K-12 cybersecurity curriculum development. She is also a PhD student at Dakota State University, studying in the Cyber Defense program with a research emphasis on digital forensics and data privacy.
In addition to teaching and developing education pathways, she enjoys organizing outreach events such as CyberTech Girls and GenCyber Girls to raise awareness about cybersecurity career pathways. Her passion is encouraging and empowering students to find their academic pathways and achieving career goals.
Abstract
The ongoing workforce shortage of skilled and diverse cybersecurity professionals coupled with the continued upward trend of cybercrime has led to an increased number of funding opportunities from the federal government to support projects focused on technical skills development. Significant emphasis is placed on academic transfer pathways and education-to-career pathways for students from K-12 to community college and beyond. Utilizing funding from multiple sources, faculty have intertwined grant project activities to increase awareness of cybersecurity careers and academic pathways, emphasizing digital forensics and incident response. The two grant projects, Cyber Up! and GenCyber Girls, aimed to develop college-level curriculum and cybersecurity workshops for female high school students. Project activities were synthesized to create a summer camp for high school students based on the curriculum developed for the college programs in digital forensics and incident response. The synergy between the projects has shown an increase in female participation in the digital forensics course and helped build interest in cybersecurity careers among K-12 students.
West, T. (2022, August), The Synergy of Intertwining Grant Activities: Cyber Up! and GenCyber Girls Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. 10.18260/1-2--42103
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