NOTE TO EDITORS: October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month.

Newswise — HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (Oct. 20, 2014) – Students will get financial help and an important foot in the door when it comes to employment in cybersecurity positions from a five-year, $4.2 million National Science Foundation-funded full cybersecurity scholarship program at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), university officials say.

“This is a highly competitive program with only a few universities nationally that are funded to implement it. It allows us to attract students to UAH for the scholarship and to support those students that are awarded the scholarship,” says Dr. Ray Vaughn, UAH vice president for research and economic development. “It is prestigious and allows our students to be exposed to other cyber corps scholarship students nationally, as well as to gain valuable on-the-job experience during their internships. The grant provides an opportunity for renewal after five years by submitting another NSF proposal to do so.”

The scholarship is the best opportunity that he knows for a student that wants to enter the field of cybersecurity as a working professional, says Dr. Vaughn.

“It affords the student the opportunity to focus on cybersecurity studies without worrying about financial concerns associated with tuition, living expenses or books,” he says. “It also gives the recipient the opportunity to immediately move into a cybersecurity position upon graduation and serve the government in an exciting and very important role.”

The Scholarship for Service (SFS) program pays for tuition, reimburses health insurance up to a maximum of $2,000 a year, reimburses books up to $1,000 a year and pays for professional development travel up to $3,000 a year. In addition, a stipend is paid each academic year in the amount of $20,000 for undergraduates, $25,000 for master’s degree students and $30,000 for doctoral students. Scholarships are awarded for two academic years (four semesters) for undergraduates and master’s degree students and for three years (six semesters) for doctoral students. A single student cannot receive more than one SFS scholarship.

“I ran this same program at Mississippi State University (MSU) for over 10 years so I’m well versed in its advantages and I know what it takes to be successful,” Dr. Vaughn says. “I grew the MSU program into one of the largest in the U.S. and would hope to have the same sort of success here.”

Students can get a leg up on cybersecurity hiring through the scholarship as they serve a paid internship during the summer semester in a government cybersecurity related position and fulfill a post-graduation scholarship obligation of one year of government service in a cybersecurity related position for each year of scholarship.

“These students must work for the government – federal, state, local or tribal – after graduation, so the internship provides them with mentoring and real world experience during their educational experience and offers the government the opportunity to get to know the student prior to making a permanent job offer,” Dr. Vaughn says.

Dr. Vaughn is the chief principal investigator for the NSF grant program, along with co-principal investigators Dr. Sara Graves, Computer Science Department professor and director of the UAH Information Technology and Systems Center (ITSC); Dr. Jatinder (Jeet) Gupta, associate dean of the UAH College of Business Administration (CBA); and Dr. Seong-Moo (Sam) Yoo, associate professor in the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) Department.

“I selected a very experienced and mature team of faculty to work with at UAH,” Dr. Vaughn says. “They represent three colleges – Science, Business Administration and Engineering. These are the colleges that we will draw students from.”

“A number of M.S. and Ph.D. students are conducting research in cybersecurity,” Dr. Graves says. “The NSF grant for SFS will help the Computer Science Department attract some of the best students to B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. programs and further enhance the ongoing research activities in the area of cybersecurity.”

Dr. Yoo says availability of the scholarships may enhance UAH nationally. “This scholarship is announced nationally, so UAH can recruit scholarship recipients from talented students nationally,” he says.

In addition, Dr. Yoo says the scholarships will benefit students in the ECE Department, which offers information assurance programs, a master of science (MS) degree in cybersecurity with a computer engineering track and a master of science in engineering degree in computer engineering/electrical engineering (CPE/EE) with a concentration in information assurance. In addition, a doctoral student in CPE/EE can select a cybersecurity related research subject in his or her doctoral dissertation. Also, the department is planning to offer an undergraduate or graduate certificate in cybersecurity engineering while a student continues to study to obtain his or her BS/MSE degree in CPE.

“This scholarship program will help the department to recruit new students who have financial difficulty but have strong intentions to study cybersecurity engineering for their careers,” Dr. Yoo says. “The scholarship may encourage some existing students to change their future career goals.”

UAH’s College of Business Administration participates in offering the MS degree in cybersecurity and offers a graduate certificate program in cybersecurity studies and an undergraduate concentration in cybersecurity and information assurance.

“The NSF grant for SFS will help us attract some of the best students, who upon graduation will serve the governmental agencies,” says Dr. Gupta. “Cybersecurity is one of the strategic thrusts of UAH. These scholarships and the opportunities created for the students will enhance the university’s reputation and will attract more students and more qualified faculty. This will help UAH to serve the community better, as well.”

Students awarded a scholarship must be enrolled full-time at UAH, which is a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education, and be U.S. citizens able to obtain a U.S. security clearance. They must meet all requirements for employment in federal service. “These internships often result in the student receiving a security clearance as a necessary part of their employment,” Dr. Vaughn says.

Undergraduates must be entering their junior year of studies. A minimum of a 3.0 grade point average (GPA) as an undergraduate and 3.2 GPA as a graduate student are required, and students must be in a bachelor’s or graduate degree program in the discipline of Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Information Systems, or Information Assurance and Security with a focus on cybersecurity.

Participation in a government job fair in early January in Washington D.C. is required of all students supported by the program.

“We are pleased to offer this program to our UAH students,” says Dr. Vaughn. “We believe it will be a valuable source of employees for our Department of Defense and government organizations located in this community.”