Do you want to work for the Department
of Defense and help defend our nation’s cyber space against CyberCrime and
CyberTerrorism?
And have your education fully paid for?
Through the Department of Defense Scholarship for Service (SFS)
program, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte and North Carolina
Agriculture and Technology State University will provide grants to students to
study in the field of information security.
Each scholarship recipient will complete a graduate degree in
either Information Technology or Computer Science, and each student will be in
the program for up to two years. Rising juniors and seniors at UNC Charlotte
are also eligible through the early entry accelerated track for MS degrees. All
students will receive stipends plus support for tuition and fees and room and
board. Upon graduation, students will be working for a DoD agency as a civilian
employee.
All students will complete a Graduate Certificate in Information
Security and Privacy at UNC Charlotte and a Master’s degree in either
Information Technology or Computer Science at either UNC Charlotte or NC
A&T State University. There will be additional activities that are
specially created for the SFS students.
Each student in the program will be supported for up to two years.
The specific benefits will be:
·
An
undergraduate will be paid a stipend of $10,000 per year. A graduate student
will be paid a stipend of $15,000 per year.
·
Applicable
tuition and fees, including any out-of-state and graduate student fees, will be
paid on behalf of the scholarship recipients. This support is provided in
addition to the stipend. (Out of state tuitions may be offered subject to
overall funding limits).
The requirements for each student in the program and the
eligibility criteria are:
·
Must be a
United States citizen.
·
Veterans
are especially encouraged to apply.
·
Either a
full graduate time student within two years of graduation at the University of
North Carolina at Charlotte or NC A&T State University with either a
Master's degree in Information Technology or Computer Science, or a qualified
rising junior or seniors at UNC Charlotte (more details below in criteria for
selection).
·
Preferences
will be given to those students who will be in the program for at least three
semesters in order to have the necessary exposure to information security
research.
·
Each
student must meet selection criteria for federal employment (final job placement
may require security clearances, so each scholarship recipient may be required
to undergo the background investigation required to obtain such clearances).
·
During
the summers while enrolled in the program, each student will be placed by the
National Security Agency (NSA) into internship positions at a Department of
Defense agency.
·
Upon
graduation, each student will be required to work for a Department of Defense
agency as a civilian employee. The work requirement time period matches
the supported time period.
Each applicant to the SFS program should provide the following:
Full application material must be received before Friday Jan. 30, 2003.
DoD Scholarship for Service c/o Linda Allen
Department of Software and Information Systems
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
9201 University City Blvd.
Charlotte, NC 28223.
Or send electronically to:
The selection criteria are as follows:
·
Undergraduate
Students
o
United
States citizen.
o
Advanced
junior/senior standing at UNC Charlotte
o
Provisionally
admitted to the MS program in either Information Technology or Computer Science
o
At least
a 3.0 cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale.
o
Recommendation
letters from at least two faculty members.
o
Evaluation
of the potential for success in the IA program.
·
Graduate
Students
o
United
States citizen.
o
Official
acceptance by either UNC Charlotte or NC A&T State University.
o
Expected
graduation with MS degree in either information technology or computer science
within two years.
o
At least
a 3.0 cumulative GPA on a 4.0 scale.
o
Evaluation
of the student’s potential success in the IA program.
In addition, we will consider the following criteria for both
undergraduate and graduate candidates:
·
Commitment
to participate in summer service and service following degree completion
according to the guidelines of the SFS program.
·
Commitment
to participate in assessment activities after their scholarship and required
federal service has ended.
·
Demonstrated
leadership, participation in team activities, prior social service, and/or
evidence of creative and independent thinking and/or acting.
The most qualified students
will be selected.
·
Can I
apply if I have an Associate's degree? No, you need to be admitted to one of the graduate programs
listed in the selection criteria.
·
Am I
required to work for two years even if I can obtain my degree faster? No. The work requirement is a one for
one match between the time you are supported and the time you are asked to
work. So if you are supported for three semesters, then you would have a work
obligation of one and a half years.
·
Can I
apply for this program if I am interested in a PhD degree in computer science? No. Only B.S. and M.S. degrees are
available through this program.
·
What
would be the starting salary for someone graduating from this program? Persons with a master's degree may be
appointed at the GS-9 level. Federal
pay rates vary depending on the location where the person works. Also, special pay rates have been created
for IT-related jobs. These rates may be
viewed at the following web site: http://www.opm.gov/oca/02tables/SSR/index.htm.
·
What
should the letters of recommendations include? The faculty panel will evaluate each
applicant based on the following criteria: Problem identification and analysis;
Effective presentation; Effective written communications; Response to people’s
needs, feelings, and capabilities (e.g. service at K-12 schools). The faculty
panels seeks input from a variety of sources including the reference letters.
·
Can I
use the same reference letters for graduate school application as well as
scholarship application?
Yes. Please indicate in your scholarship application that you would like to use
the same reference letters as your graduate application. We will obtain these
letters from the graduate school.
Access control policy
management. This research is the collaboration of several
researchers and aims at developing a framework for large/multiple enterprises
to manage access control policies. The approach integrates role-based access
control, delegation, distributed trust management, PMI and PKI.
Authentication
architectures for healthcare applications. This research
aims at the development of a robust, easy to use, scalable authentication
architecture to be used for strong authentication. Although it is targeted for
health care applications, many aspects of the architecture are generic and can
be used by other types of applications as well.
Authentication protocols
for token-based wearable devices. This research is looking at a new, patented
approach to wireless-based strong user authentication based on wearable
communication devices. It enables the development of innovative wireless
applications that can protect the privacy of users in a wireless communication
environment.
Efficient algorithms for
encryption and digital signature. Representing a significant improvement over
previous works, this research has resulted a new class of algorithms and
protocols that combine encryption and digital signature into a single
algorithm. It can be applied with a variety of public-key encryption techniques
and result in very significant savings in computing time. One of the promising
applications of this patented approach is that it can be used in wireless
communication with significant saving in power consumption over traditional
methods.
Information security
architecture for collaborative working environments. This research investigates
alternative security models and architectures for collaborative working
environments, including workflow and context-rich information environments.
Modular intrusion
detection. The focus of this
research seeks to create a new modular paradigm for intrusion detection. One
key characteristic is that it will be extremely scalable, ranging from home
based network to large networks spanning multiple geographical locations.
Security for resource
constrained computing. A security extension to KVM (a
micro version of Java) for PDAs running on the Palm operating system has been
developed. Faculty and students are currently investigating new and efficient
information security techniques for the next generation of hand-held devices.
Survivability mechanisms
for mobile networks. Perform critical analysis of protocol
behavior for both cellular and ad hoc network architectures. The objective is
to develop a realistic test bed to assess how mobile networks can continue to
operate under various attack/disaster scenarios