Carolinas
Cyber Defender Scholarship
Do you want to work for the
federal government
Help defend our nation’s cyberspace against
CyberCrime and CyberTerrorism?
And have your education fully paid for?
Join the elite cyber security team
at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Deadline to apply for Spring 2007: November
1, 2006
What the Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship
for Service Program Offers
Through the Federal Cyber Corps Scholarship for Service (SFS) program,
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte and North Carolina Agriculture
and Technology State University will provide grants to students studying
in the field of information assurance (IA).
Each scholarship recipient will complete either a Bachelor of Arts degree
in Software and Information Systems or a Master's degree in either Information
Technology or Computer Science. Each scholarship student must be able
to complete his or her academic program within a maximum of two years.
Rising juniors and seniors are eligible either as undergraduates or through
the early entry accelerated track for the MS degree.
All participants will be fully integrated into the department's research
programs and become affiliated with an on-going research project.
In addition to their degrees, graduate students will complete a Graduate
Certificate in Information Security and Privacy at UNC Charlotte. There
will be additional activities that are created especially for the SFS
students.
Scholarship Benefits
Each student in the program will be supported for up to two years. The
specific benefits are:
- Tuition and fees: Applicable tuition and fees, including the reasonable
cost of textbooks and any out-of-state and/or graduate student fees,
will be paid on behalf of the scholarship recipients. This support is
provided in addition to the stipend. (Out-of-state tuition may be offered
subject to overall funding limits).
- Stipend: To cover room, board, and other expenses, an undergraduate
will be paid a stipend of $13,000 per year ($6,500 per semester). Graduate
students will be paid a stipend of $15,000 per year ($7,500 per semester).
- Research: Each student will be matched to a on-going research project
under the direction of an IA faculty member.
Requirements and Eligibility
The eligibility criteria are:
- A United States citizen.
- Either a full-time graduate student within two years of graduation
at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte or North Carolina A&T
State University with either a Master's degree in Information Technology
or Computer Science, or a qualified rising junior or senior at UNC Charlotte
(more details below in Criteria for Selection).
- Preferences will be given to those students who will be in the program
for at least three semesters in order to have the necessary exposure
to information security research.
- Each student must meet selection criteria for federal employment.
Final job placement may require a security clearance, so each scholarship
recipient may be required to undergo the background investigation required
to obtain such clearances.
- During the summers while enrolled in the program, each student will
be responsible for securing an internship position at a federal agency.
Numerous resources are available to assist students in identifying and
applying for internships.
- Upon graduation, each student will be required to work in a qualified
information assurance position for a federal agency. The work requirement
time period matches the supported time period. For example, a full two-year
scholarship requires two years of federal employment. Each student is
responsible for identifying, applying for, and securing a qualified
position. Numerous resources are available, including the assistance
of the Office or Personnel Management (OPM) which oversees permanent
placement for scholarship students.
Application Process and Deadlines
Each applicant to the SFS program should provide the following:
- Completed application form.
- Statement of purpose and description of goals and motivations to pursue
a career in Information Assurance and computer security.
- Official transcripts of all college work outside of UNC Charlotte
or NC A&T.
- Recommendation letters from at least two university faculty members
familiar with the student's background. The faculty members may
be from UNC Charlotte or another institution.
The application deadline is November 1, 2006 for admission to the Spring
semester (beginning in January, 2007).
All applicants should send (or have sent) all of the information listed
above to:
Scholarship for Service c/o Bruce Long
Department of Software and Information Systems
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
9201 University City Blvd.
Charlotte, NC 28223
Electronic submissions to nblong@uncc.edu are acceptable as well. Please
include as the Subject line "SFS Application".
Questions may be directed to Bruce Long, 704-687-8441 or to nblong@uncc.edu.
Criteria for Selection
The selection criteria are as follows:
- Undergraduate Students
- United States citizen
- Junior (60 hours) or Senior (90 hours) standing at UNC Charlotte
as of the Spring semester 2006.
- At least a 3.0 cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale.
- Recommendation letters from at least two faculty members.
- Evaluation of the student's potential for success in the IA program.
- Graduate Students
- United States citizen
- Official acceptance into the graduate program by either UNC Charlotte
or NC A&T State University
- Expected graduation with MS degree in either Information Technology
or Computer Science within two years
- At least a 3.0 cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale
- Evaluation of the student’s potential for success in the
IA program
In addition, we will consider the following criteria for both undergraduate
and graduate candidates:
- Commitment to participate in summer service and service following
degree completion according to the guidelines of the SFS program.
- Commitment to participate in assessment activities after their scholarship
and required federal service has ended.
- Demonstrated leadership, participation in team activities, prior
social service, and/or evidence of creative and independent thinking
and/or acting.
Competition is expected to be significant. Only the most qualified students
will be selected.
Selection Process
A panel of IA faculty from UNC Charlotte and NC A&T State University
will review all applications and interview likely candidates, either in
person or by telephone. The selection process will end when the panel
selects the most qualified students to be admitted on the basis of application
data and the interview. During this selection process, the students’
interests, goals, and requests will be used to match each scholarship
student with an appropriate faculty mentor.
Special Activities and Programs for SFS Students
Key components of the SFS program, in addition to the normal classroom
and laboratory experiences contained in the graduate curricula, are:
- Faculty with considerable experience in working with undergraduate
and graduate students in a teaching and research environment.
- Immediate integration of students in existing research programs in
information assurance.
- A Cyber Research Seminar emphasizing critical thinking, leadership,
presentation, and publication skills.
- As a complement to hands-on research, a series of Information Security
and Privacy seminars will allow students to interact with experts in
the field of information assurance.
- An internship workshop will be held annually. Students will present
their internship experiences.
- Development of professional skills through lectures, mentoring, a
training series, and experience.
The service aspect, coordinated by OPM, where students will serve in
a government agency during the summers while they are enrolled in the
SFS program. This service experience will give them an opportunity to
solve specific real problems in information assurance.
Some Frequently Asked Questions
- Can I apply if I have an Associate's degree? No, you must be an undergraduate
junior or senior or be admitted to one of the graduate programs listed
in the selection criteria.
- Am I required to work for two years even if I can obtain my degree
faster? No. The work requirement is a one-for-one match between the
time you are supported and the time you are asked to work. For example,
if you are supported for three semesters, then you would have a work
obligation of one and a half years.
- Can I apply for this program if I am interested in a PhD degree in
computer science? No. Only Bachelor's and Master's degrees are available
through this program.
- Will it be possible to complete the service obligation at any one
of the national laboratories, such as INEEL? No. The national labs are
all run by contractors and as such the employees at the labs are contractor
employees and not federal employees. The obligation associated with
this program is a federal employment obligation.
- What would be the starting salary for someone graduating from this
program? Persons with a Bachelor's degree are typically employed at
least at the GS-7 level. Students with Master's degrees may be appointed
at the GS-9 level. Higher civil service levels and steps may be applicable
depending on prior experience and other factors. The hiring agency makes
the determination about the civil service pay grade and step.
Federal pay rates vary depending on the location where the person works.
Also, special pay rates have been created for IT-related jobs. These
rates may be viewed at http://www.opm.gov/oca/02tables/SSR/index.htm.
- What should the letters of recommendations include? The faculty panel
will evaluate each applicant based on the following criteria: problem
identification and analysis; effective presentation; effective written
communications; response to people’s needs, feelings, and capabilities
(e.g. service at K-12 schools). The faculty panels seeks input from
a variety of sources including the reference letters.
- Can I use the same reference letters for my graduate school application
as well as for the scholarship application? Yes. Please indicate in
your scholarship application that you would like to use the same reference
letters as your graduate application. We will obtain these letters from
the graduate school.
Security and Information Assurance Research
at UNC Charlotte and NC A&T State University
The following illustrate some of the many on-going research projects
at UNC Charlotte and North Carolina A&T State University.
- Access control policy management. This research is a collaboration
between several researchers and aims at developing a framework for large/multiple
enterprises to manage access control policies. The approach integrates
role-based access control, delegation, distributed trust management,
PMI and PKI.
- Authentication architectures for healthcare applications. This research
aims at the development of a robust, easy-to-use, scalable authentication
architecture to be used for strong authentication. Although it is targeted
for health care applications, many aspects of the architecture are generic
and can be used by other types of applications as well.
- Authentication protocols for token-based wearable devices. This research
is looking at a new, patented approach to wireless-based strong user
authentication based on wearable communication devices. It enables the
development of innovative wireless applications that can protect the
privacy of users in a wireless communication environment.
- Efficient algorithms for encryption and digital signature. Representing
a significant improvement over previous works, this research has resulted
a new class of algorithms and protocols that combine encryption and
digital signature into a single algorithm. It can be applied with a
variety of public-key encryption techniques and results in very significant
savings in computing time. One of the promising applications of this
patented approach is that it can be used in wireless communication with
significant saving in power consumption over traditional methods.
- Information security architecture for collaborative working environments.
This research investigates alternative security models and architectures
for collaborative working environments, including workflow and context-rich
information environments.
- Modular intrusion detection. The focus of this research seeks to create
a new modular paradigm for intrusion detection. One key characteristic
is that it will be extremely scalable, ranging from a home-based network
to large networks spanning multiple geographical locations.
- Security for resource constrained computing. A security extension
to KVM (a micro version of Java) for PDAs running on the Palm operating
system has been developed. Faculty and students are currently investigating
new and efficient information security techniques for the next generation
of hand-held devices.
- Survivability mechanisms for mobile networks. Performs critical analysis
of protocol behavior for both cellular and ad hoc network architectures.
The objective is to develop a realistic test bed to assess how mobile
networks can continue to operate under various attack/disaster scenarios
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