Mercy's Cybersecurity Education Center Participated in Department of Homeland Security Research Program for Minority-Serving Institutions

Mercy College was one of only fourteen schools in the country invited to spend this past summer working on research projects focused on cyber safety and security at the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) - a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Center of Excellence. The Mercy College research team, headed by Dr. Zhixiong Chen, professor of computer science and director of Mercy’s Cybersecurity Education Center, engaged in a 10-week research program that showcased Mercy's cybersecurity education program on a national stage.

“Mercy is a Center of Academic Excellence, designated by the National Security Agency for Cybersecurity Defense Education,” said Chen. “The fact that our students and faculty were invited to a national program for conducting research in a highly sophisticated area of study reflects well on Mercy. The students who participated can now be role models for others who may think these opportunities are beyond their reach.”

In late spring, DHS announced Mercy had been selected to participate in its Summer Faculty-Student Research Team Program for Minority Serving Institutions after two rounds of competition. Chen and Mercy students Geordy Vincent ’23 and Ederson Mazariego ’23 spent their summer at UIUC, where they collaborated on a team research project under the advising of UIUC faculty and interacted with senior CIRI researchers.

Their project, entitled, “PASS+ Toward a Safe, Secure and Resilient Cyber Environment,” focused on reducing vulnerability and improving security in physical systems.  At a virtual workshop that concluded the program on August 3, Chen gave a talk summarizing the team’s findings. Vincent, an undergraduate computer science major, and Mazariego, a graduate student in the master’s program in cybersecurity, each presented a poster. Chen was also invited to apply for a follow-on grant for continuing the work.

“With the proliferation of devices connected to the Internet and to each other, cyber environments are more vulnerable than ever to attacks from even unskilled hackers,” Chen explained. The Mercy team worked on developing a framework for creating building blocks known as portfolio artifacts to identify human beings, bots and malicious software using blockchain technology and ontology.

All student participants were trained in complex technologies related to graduate study in cybersecurity. They were also afforded opportunities to interact with each other and CIRI mentors in more than 10 seminars and weekly social events. “It was a rare opportunity for everyone. The undergrads got a taste of graduate school and the master’s students learned research fundamentals,” said Chen. “The students also learned that research is about trying different approaches to see what works and what doesn’t.”