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Last week President Barack Obama gave his annual State of the Union Address. Not surprisingly, among the things his address touched on was cybersecurity.

CSEE’s Professor Anupam Joshi, director of the UMBC Center for Cybersecurity, was one of nine academics invited by The Conversation to give reactions to particular items mention in the address. His remarks were included in their article, The State of the Union 2015 – a closer look at the president’s ‘ambitious agenda’.

The need for cyberhygiene
Anupam Joshi, University of Maryland Baltimore

The fact that cybersecurity found mention in the president’s SOTU address, among weighty issues like fundamental new approaches to taxation and foreign policy, is a testament to how important this issue is today. From (corporate) espionage and identity theft to financial crimes and ransomware, cyberspace is where sophisticated state, non-state and criminal enterprise actors are now most active.

The president correctly identified that we need to protect cyberspace to reap the benefits of the digital revolution, focusing on greater information sharing to improve security.

Presumably, this refers to passage of proposed legislation to provide targeted liability protection that would enable more information about private sector attacks to reach the Department of Homeland Security’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center. Such legislation will enable researchers to have the data to better understand, detect, and deter attacks, but there are also significant issues around privacy and data security that need to be carefully addressed.

Earlier this month, the White House suggested that better tools for law enforcement, newer requirements on reporting data breaches, and support for cybersecurity education are needed.

These are all important, but I would urge a particular focus on significantly expanding cybersecurity education far beyond the typical college-level courses to train cyber defenders.

What we need is a greater awareness of “cyberhygiene” for the average internet user – simple “preventative medicine” tactics to minimize risk for individuals and for us all. Just as kids are taught to wash hands for 20 seconds or be careful around strangers for example, they should be taught to be careful when clicking on links embedded in emails.

Graduate students in Maryland have a wealth of resources at their fingertips! Please take some time to review the following information so that you can plan your calendars accordingly. There are programs at UMBC, the University of Maryland College Park, and the University of Maryland Baltimore. Graduate students at any of the institutions within the University System of Maryland are welcome to attend these seminars through the state’s PROMISE AGEP collaboration.

Events at College Park: 

http://www.gradschool.umd.edu/news_and_events/eventcalendar.html

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Events at UMB: 

http://graduate.umaryland.edu/

Note: The UMB-UMBC Partnership Innovation Symposium will be held on Jan. 30, 2015.

UMB also offers opportunities through the University of Maryland Medical School’s Research Career Development Program: http://medschool.umaryland.edu/career/

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Events at UMBC:

Full list here:

UMBC Graduate Student SPRING 2015 Seminars_Updated1_25_15

All graduate students attending institutions within the University System of Maryland are invited to attend a Special Saturday Success Breakfast Seminar on Public Speaking:

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Keys to Public Speaking: Prepare for Your Upcoming Presentation.

UMBC COMMONS, Room 331

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Speaker: Scott Morgan

Scott Morgan has been teaching communication skills for 20 years. His clients include the National Institutes of Health, the Mayo Clinic, Merck, NASA, EPA, City of Hope Cancer Center, and several universities: Harvard Medical School, UNC Chapel Hill, Cornell, Maryland, Ohio State, Minnesota, Duke, Nebraska and NC State University, and Texas A&M. He has 25 years of broadcast experience and teaches media and communication strategy to many think tanks in the Washington DC area. Specifically, as a Senior Associate with the Abshire Inamori Leadership Academy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (http://csis.org/expert/scott-morgan). Scott graduated with honors from the University of California, Davis and authored the book Speaking about Science published by Cambridge University Press.

The Morgan Group has been training graduate students and postdocs in Maryland for more than 10 years.

Please come in preparation for your presentations at upcoming local meetings such as the various graduate research conferences, and the PROMISE Research Symposium.

Breakfast refreshments will be served. Please RSVP on MyUMBC: http://my.umbc.edu/groups/promise/events/28691 (UMBC graduate students, staff, postdocs, faculty). Participants from other universities may register as a comment to this post with your name and institution.

The fourth Mid-Atlantic Student Colloquium on Speech, Language and Learning (MASC-SLL) will he held at JHU this coming Friday, January 30. It’s a good opportunity to sample current research on language technology and machine learning, including the work of a number of UMBC students. The program for the one-day colloquium includes oral presentations, poster sessions, a panel and three breakout sessions.

The event is free and open to all, but registration is requested by Tuesday, January 27. Note that the location has been moved to the Glass Pavilion on the JHU Homewood Campus

This is the first in a series of weekly posts to promote Shriver Center partnerships, highlight community assets and needs, and market opportunities for the UMBC community.  The Shriver Center offers 096 Community Service & Learning, a zero-credit transcript notation for UMBC students engaged in weekly service and reflective activities.

Community Partner Name: 

Lakeland Elementary Middle School

2921 Stranden Road, Baltimore, MD 21230 (@ 15 minutes from UMBC)

Partner Representative: 

Zach Pekor, Project Director, Lakeland Elementary Young Explorers 

Describe the issue area(s) that your organization addresses. 

Our organization works primarily in education by providing a STEM after school program, called Young Explorers, for 1st-4th grades  Through the Young Explorers Program, we provide our scholars academic tutoring, math and reading skills reinforcement, and enrichment activities such as art, science experiments, physical education. 

What do you consider your community's greatest strengths? 

What does your organization bring to the community? 

As a community school, Lakeland offers many different services for the families and community members. These services include a Food Pantry, Spanish and English Classes, Technology Open Lab Time, and Community Gardens. Overall, Lakeland Elementary Middle School is a keystone organization in the greater Lakeland community. 

During the summer, we offer a summer camp experience called Freedom Schools which is an academic model created by the Children’s Defense Fund as a way of having education be a personal form of freedom.  The curriculum focuses heavily on literacy but viewed through a cultural and historic lens, so that our scholars learn more than just basic literacy skills.   

What are meaningful ways that the UMBC community can work together to impact the community? 

UMBC is in such a great position to aid many of organizations in the immediate area through its commitment to academic rigor and the STEM fields. Additionally, the students offer a large pool of talent in which they can plug into already existing community organizations. The many clubs and organizations at UMBC are a great way to engage in the work that we do here at Lakeland, especially with our attention to STEM. I cannot think of a better way for UMBC students to engage in service and civic engagement than through the many community organizations in the Baltimore metro area. 

How did you get involved with this type of work?  

While attending graduate school at DePaul University for my Masters in Biology, I realized that research was not for me at all.  I loved and continue to love the sciences but wanted to make a broader impact by getting youth interested in the STEM fields.  I spent two years serving with AmeriCorps in both the NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) and VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) and that is where I developed a strong interest in community service and educational outreach (more info at http://www.nationalservice.gov/programs/americorps/americorps-nccc).  After that I started applying to jobs that combined my love of science with that of community service and ended up getting the position with UMBC and Lakeland Elementary Middle School! 

How can YOU get involved? 

Young Explorers currently operates Monday-Thursdays until mid-May, 2:30-5:30 pm.  Transportation is available.  Volunteers will register in the Spring 2015 096 Practicum - one day a week at Young Explorers is fine (more always welcomed). 

Currently, we are looking for STEM Fellows who would be providing a math or literacy lesson to a classroom of our students.  We have openings for a 4th Grade Fellow for Wednesday and Thursday as well as a 2nd Grade Fellow for Tuesday and Thursday.  All fellow positions have a stipend with each fellow receiving training in classroom management and lesson plan development.  

All interested individuals should contact Mr. Pekor at zpekor@umbc.edu.  This is a great way to development student leadership skills and to create strong bonds with the local community (see attached application).

For more information about Young Explorers and/or Lakeland Elementary Middle School, contact Zach Pekor at 410-455-1501, zpekor@umbc.edu

The UMBC Computer Science and Electrical Engineering department seeks to fill two tenure-track faculty positions for its Computer Science program and is especially interested in candidates whose research areas include security and data analytics and related fields. Apply by January 15, 2015 for full consideration.

UMBC has a large and vibrant computing community with nearly 100 faculty and more than 3100 students enrolled in computing programs that include computer science, cybersecurity, computer engineering, electrical engineering, information systems, human-centered computing, intermedia and digital arts, and bioinformatics.

Our location in the Baltimore-DC corridor puts us in the center of one of the largest concentrations of federal agencies and research and development centers and many industrial research labs, including the new Cybersecurity Federally Funded R&D Center. We benefit from an excellent computing infrastructure that includes several high-performance computing clusters and participation in the National LambdaRail network.

The CSEE Department also has three new positions for full-time lecturers. The College of Engineering and Information Technology has a position for a full-time lecturer or Professor of the Practice to focus on the needs of incoming computing majors through teaching, advising, and helping develop programs in computing. This person will work closely with faculty in the Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department and Information Systems Department. UMBC’s Information Systems department is accepting applications for three tenure track faculty positions in data science, software engineering and human-centered computing.

The Great Escape is an online international multiplayer coding contest being held for 2 weeks from February 6th starting at 12:00 pm EST to February 20th at 5:00 pm EST.

The Great Escape will be a thrilling multiplayer Artificial Intelligence Battle, where students will have to:

• Program the best bot to escape a maze by trapping their ennemies,
• Have their bot fight against other players’ bots in an arena
• Improve their program as they go along until victory!

Participation is 100% online and free. Over 20 coding languages to choose from. International automated rankings + Leaderboard by University. 10+ sponsoring companies offering jobs and internships. Prizes to win: GoPro 4, iPad Mini, and 25+ t-shirts! All skill levels are encouraged to play: no need to be an A.I. Expert to have fun.