2235183

CyberCorps Scholarship for Service: A Clinical Rotation Approach to Professional Cybersecurity Workforce Development

This project establishes a new CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (SFS) program at Oregon State University (OSU) to prepare highly qualified cybersecurity professionals to serve in federal, state, local, and tribal governments. Through a unique approach based on clinical rotations, the program will produce professionals ready to protect the nation's infrastructure against cyber adversaries. NSF funding will support scholarships of 29 undergraduate and graduate students in four cohorts over five years.

This project will emphasize recruitment, retention, and placement of underrepresented and underserved groups in cybersecurity, including women, first-generation college students, and low-income students. It will also evaluate and refine the clinical rotations approach to serve as a replicable model for developing a highly skilled cybersecurity workforce.

With the goal of meeting the need for well-qualified cybersecurity professionals, OSU developed the Oregon Research and Teaching Security Operations Center (ORTSOC), a world-class security operations center that serves as the cornerstone of a rotation-based model. OSU's cybersecurity degree option provides the next generation of cyber defenders and researchers a unique service-learning experience through for-credit rotations at ORTSOC, while offering cybersecurity services to underserved government and other public organizations throughout the region.

These rotations at the ORTSOC, combined with OSU's rigorous cybersecurity curriculum and extracurricular activities, provide a unique blend of classroom and experiential learning opportunities for our cybersecurity students. Research involvement for students at both the undergraduate and graduate level will help further develop critical and creative thinking skills in the students, better preparing them to thrive in a rapidly evolving field.

This project is supported by the CyberCorps Scholarship for Service (SFS) program, which funds proposals establishing or continuing scholarship programs in cybersecurity and aligns with the U.S. National Cyber Strategy to develop a superior cybersecurity workforce. Following graduation, scholarship recipients are required to work in cybersecurity for a federal, state, local, or tribal government organization for the same duration as their scholarship support.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

Oregon State University

THE GOAL OF THIS FUNDING OPPORTUNITY, "CYBERCORPS(R) SCHOLARSHIP FOR SERVICE", IS IDENTIFIED IN THE LINK: HTTPS://WWW.NSF.GOV/PUBLICATIONS/PUB_SUMM.JSP?ODS_KEY=NSF21580

47.076 - Education and Human Resources

Division of Graduate Education (DGE) [NSF]

Corvallis, Oregon 97331-8655 United States

Single Zip Code

CyberCorps(R) Scholarship for Service (21-580)

Amendment Since initial award the total obligations have increased 92% from $1,727,359 to $3,318,786.