the Peace Corps Office of University Programs is accepting applications for fall 2018 semester interns. Please feel free to post this opportunity as appropriate or send directly to interested students. Attached please find:

 

·       The intern position description for the Office of University Programs

·       The general Peace Corps internship application form

o   The Office of University Programs falls under the Office of Volunteer Recruitment and Selection on this form.

 

Please have interested students submit their application materials to internships@peacecorps.gov and copy universityprograms@peacecorps.gov.

Nearly 140 Employers are Coming to Campus on Wednesday, September 26th to Recruit Students Like YOU

Are You Ready for the UMBC Fall Career and Internship Fair?

Participate in one or more of the workshops below.
Open to various fields of study and degree levels!

This is a great opportunity to learn from industry experts.

Keys to Success - Behavioral Based Interviews
Monday, September 10th, 12Noon - 1:00 pm, Commons 331 - Facilitated by T. Rowe Price
Behavioral interview questions focus on how you handled various work situations in the past. Your response will reveal your skills, abilities, and personality.

ALSO- STOP OVER THE CAREER CENTER IN MATH/PSYC 201 FOR RESUME RESCUE FROM 10AM-12PM and 1PM-4PM FOR A RESUME REVIEW- Career Center Staff and Industry Experts will be on hand.

Resume Rescue is being held on Thursday, September 13th and Monday, September 17th

The UMBC Cyber Defense Lab

Phishing in an Academic Community:
a Study of User Susceptibility and Behavior

Alejandra Diaz
University of Maryland, Baltimore County

12:00–1:00pm, Friday, 14 September 2018, ITE 227

(joint work with Alan T. Sherman Anupam Joshi)

We present an observational study on the relationship between demographic factors and phishing susceptibility at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). From March through May 2018, we performed three experiments that delivered phishing attacks to 450 randomly-selected students on three different days (1,350 students total) to examine user click rates and demographics within UMBC’s undergraduate student population. The participants were initially unaware of the study. We deployed the Billing Problem, Contest Winner, and Expiration Date phishing tactics. Experiment 1 impersonated banking authorities; Experiment 2 enticed users with monetary rewards; and Experiment 3 threatened users with account cancellation.

We found correlations resulting in lowered susceptibility based on college affiliation, academic year progression, cyber training, involvement in cyber clubs or cyber scholarship programs, amount of time spent on the computer, and age demographics. We found no significant correlation between gender and susceptibility. Contrary to our expectations, we observed an inverse correlation between phishing awareness and student resistance to clicking a phishing link. Students who identified themselves as understanding the definition of phishing had a higher susceptibility rate than did their peers who were merely aware of phishing attacks, with both groups of students having a higher susceptibility rate than those with no knowledge whatsoever. Overall, approximately 70% of the students who opened a phishing email clicked on it.

Alejandra Diaz (*protected email*) is a cyber software engineer at Northrop Grumman. She earned her BS in computer science from UMBC with a concentration in cybersecurity in May 2017, and her MS in computer science in August 2018. As a Cyber Scholar and a Society of Women Studying Information Security Scholar, she has a special interest in the human aspects of cybersecurity.

Host: Alan T. Sherman, *protected email*

Support for this research was provided in part by the National Science Foundation under SFS grant 1241576, the U.S. Department of Defense under CAE grant H988230-17-1-0349, and IBM.

The post talk: Phishing in an Academic Community, a Study of User Susceptibility and Behavior appeared first on Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering.

Stephanie Milani will complete her Computer Science (B.S.) and Psychology (B.A.) degrees in 2019. She is a Grand Challenge Scholar, a URA Scholar, and a member of the Honors College.

Title of your research project: Creating a Scalable Framework for Model-Free Reinforcement Learning in Norm-Rich Environments

Describe your project:I developed a scalable framework for robots to incorporate human values and preferences, or norms, with traditional methods for learning how to perform tasks so that these robots can learn how to act in environments where there may be social ramifications to actions.

Who is your mentor for your project? Why did you choose them? My research mentor is Dr. Katia Sycara, Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.A couple of my friends from the Robotics Institute Summer Scholars program worked with her last summer and only had great things to say about working with her. When she and I met, I liked the research questions that she proposed. Based on that conversation and the research publications I had read from her lab, I decided that I wanted to work with her for the summer and the fall.

How did you become interested in this project?Dr. Sycara's lab is researching the general area of normative reasoning for social robots. While reading papers in this area, I realized that few people have looked into how to incorporate normative reasoning in a reinforcement learning setting. I've been interested in reinforcement learning for a few years now - both from its psychological underpinnings and in the area of machine learning - and I wanted to take the opportunity to explore it in a little-researched area with real-world impact. 

What has been the hardest part about your research/what was the most unexpected thing about being a researcher? The most difficult part about my research is finding a research problem that is both specific enough to make a tangible contribution and plan, but broad enough that it has greater impact outside of its original context.

What has been the most rewarding part?Probably presenting my research and being met with interest!

How will you disseminate your research?I will publish this research in the RISS Working Papers Journal. I plan to incorporate part of this work in my URCAD presentation, as well as other publications. 

What is your advice to other students about getting involved in research? If you find someone's research findings interesting, then contact them about it! They may have opportunities for you to work with them. 

What are your career goals?I plan to obtain a Ph.D. in Computer Science, specifically focusing on the field of reinforcement learning. After that, I plan to continue with research in machine learning in either an academic or industrial setting.

To learn more about becoming a URA Scholar:

https://ur.umbc.edu/ura/

or contact Dr. Householder at : aprilh@umbc.edu

NEW for this fall semester!  To help you GET READY TO BE HIRED, the Career Center has scheduled four workshops that will help to familiarize you with various interviewing methods.  These events are meant for all UMBC students (graduate and undergraduate) whether hoping to secure an internship, job or survive a graduate school interview.

T. ROWE PRICE:  Behavioral Based Interviews

Monday, September 10
Noon – 1:00 pm
Commons 331

FACEBOOK Tech Talk:  Technical/Coding Interview

Tuesday, September 11
5:00 – 7:00 pm
University Center 312

UMBC CAREER CENTER:  Surviving a Group Interview

Thursday, September 13
5:00 – 6:00 pm
Commons 331

FDM GROUP:  Video Interviews

Thursday, September 20
5:00 – 6:00 pm
Commons 331