ODU Awarded NSA Grant to Develop Cybersecurity Program

June 22, 2017

Ariel Pinto

Old Dominion University Engineering researchers were awarded The National Security Agency Cybersecurity Core Curricula Development Grant to develop a course on Cybersecurity Risk Management to support the President's Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP).

Lead by Ariel Pinto, an ODU associate professor of engineering management and systems Engineering, the project aims to develop a course in risk management in cybersecurity and to provide a syllabus, teaching materials, student materials, case studies and a website.

"This is a chance to highlight the capabilities of our department," Pinto said. "We are between the areas of traditional engineering, management and business and have the opportunity to move beyond engineering. This is a unique opportunity."

ODU students played a major role in acquiring the grant.

"When we first learned about the grant in late November we only had three weeks to apply. Three of my students wrote about ninety percent of the grant proposal." Pinto said. "It is part of our mentoring process here; instead of writing a grant proposal with some input from the students, I am trying to invert that and let them write it out and guide them."

The course will create a common understanding of CyberSecurity Risk Management for a diverse set of experts coming from many disciplines such as technical, social, economics, law and politics to prepare the development of current and future federal employees. The course will be open to the public and should be available within the next year.

To learn more about the program, visit the Cyber Security Risk Management website.