Missouri S&T Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research (CAE-R)
Description
Missouri S&T offers a unique contribution to the information assurance field with our focus on ensuring the combined cyber and physical security of the nation’s electric power grid, oil, gas and water distribution systems, and transportation systems.
Missouri S&T was the first Missouri university to be designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education (CAEIAE) and is the first Missouri university to be designated as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Research (CAE-R)
Missouri S&T’s CAE-R program embraces graduate research in three areas aligned with departmental strengths:
Cyber Security: Cyber Security is a growing field encompassing both confidentiality and integrity threats to computer and engineered systems and preserving privacy and anonymity. Research themes are secure and privacy-preserving operations in cyber-physical infrastructure and mobile systems, enterprise IT security, cloud, edge, and sensor security. A graduate certificate in computer security is offered via streaming distance.
Data Science: Data science is a growing field of understanding the world through data mining and deep learning and reasoning/artificial intelligence. Research Themes are Urban Infrastructures, Image Analysis and Computer Vision, Machine learning, Real-time scheduling, Heuristic Problem Solving.
Cyber-Physical Security (CPS): CPS plays a major role on an engineering campus. Departmental strengths include sensing, smart grid, and real-time systems with an eye towards threats, vulnerabilities, and defenses that include the cyber with the physical aspects of systems..
A Ph.D. may be obtained with emphasis in any or all of the three areas.
Active Research in Cyber Security
Student funding
Students may be funded with half time graduate research assistants working with faculty on funded research projects.
Scholarship for Services (SFS) Program
The SFS scholarship is a prestigious scholarship funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) to sponsor excellent students to pursue study in the field of cybersecurity. There have been more than 2000 SFS scholars national wide. SFS graduates are currently serving in various government agencies and national labs. It is worth noting that more than 140 federal agencies are hiring SFS scholars. NSF is also organizing special job fairs for SFS scholars only. Government jobs offer excellent job security, employee benefits, paid vacations, regular working hours, etc. The job placement rate of SFS graduates are nearly 100%.
Through the SFS program, Missouri S&T will provide grants to students studying in the field of cybersecurity. Each scholarship recipient must complete either a M.S. or a Ph.D. degree on Computer Science. Rising juniors and seniors, and current M.S. and Ph.D. students who are U.S. citizens are eligible either as undergraduates through the MS degree, or PhD degree. Find detailed information about eligibility under the requirements tab.
Outreach
Many of the department’s student groups are involved in cybersecurity. A complete list of student activities, including penetration testing, capture the flag, and cyber defense are at: https://cs.mst.edu/newsandevents/student-events/
