New Minor Prepares R.I.’s Workforce for Jobs in Cybersecurity

“More than half a million job openings in cybersecurity are available in this country,” she said. “The problem is there are not enough people to fill them.” 

Mello-Stark is determined to change that.

Winner of the 2019 Innovations in Cybersecurity Education Award and a member of U.S. Rep. Jim Langevin’s cybersecurity advisory board, Mello-Stark recently initiated a new minor in cybersecurity at Rhode Island College, which begins fall 2020. 

“Any student majoring in any subject can benefit from this minor,” she said, “because no matter where you work, data is stored online, necessitating the need for cybersecurity.”

The minor, which consists of 20 credit hours, has five required courses: Computer Fundamentals for Cybersecurity, Introduction to Algorithmic Thinking in Python, Computer Programming and Design, Cybersecurity Principles, Digital Forensics and Network and Systems Security.

“I’m hoping the minor will attract not only computer science students but students in all other majors as well,” she said. “The hope is that the minor takes off throughout the campus.”

A few months before the minor emerged, a new student club emerged focused solely on cybersecurity. President of the club Adam Sebzda was inspired to form the club called Info SCC after taking a special topics course by Mello-Stark on security information.

“I took her course this past fall and it filled up fast because there was a lot of student interest in the topic,” he said. “All the students had questions about how to get into the cybersecurity industry, and after the class was over a lot of students still wanted to learn more.”

Sebzda is a computer science major who has already begun his career in cybersecurity. Since 2009 he has worked full-time as a security software developer at Dell Secure Works, while taking courses in the evening at RIC. 

“Cybersecurity is a broad industry,” he said. “There’s a lot of different paths in, but they’re not really clearly defined. So, I wanted to start a club to teach students about the different disciplines and the skills they’ll need to enter those disciplines and how to get frontline jobs.”

Sebzda’s own path into the industry began around middle school when he and his friends got their first taste of the Internet in their homes and were eager to push its boundaries.

“We browsed websites and read articles on how to bend and break the rules of this global network, mostly with the goal of being able to annoy friends and family with our newfound knowledge,” he said. “There was something exciting about being able to do things that common Internet users didn’t know was possible. I didn’t always understand why certain tricks or techniques worked, but it was the desire to dive in and learn that wound up being important.”

In college, Sebzda pursued careers in other fields yet found himself programming websites as a hobby. “I took everything I learned during my middle and high school years and started applying that knowledge defensively, focusing on making sure no one could get my websites to do things they weren’t supposed to do. All of these experiences helped land me my first job in cybersecurity,” he said.

Mello-Stark believes there are hundreds of high school students like Sebzda – curious, talented, adept with technology, who would thrive in the cybersecurity field.

Last summer, she won a grant by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to establish the first and only GenCyber summer camp in Rhode Island, held on the Rhode Island College campus.

As program director, with two RIC computer science students assisting (Naomi Ruiz and Diego Gomez), Mello-Stark gave 30 rising junior and senior high school students from 19 different high schools experiences in building a computer from scratch, programming with Python, building an operating system and cybersecurity principles. She also hired a guidance counselor, Pat Bird, to talk about cyberbullying and ethical online behavior. Lead teacher was Douglas Tondreau, an ACE High School cybersecurity teacher.

With renewed funding by the NSA and NSF, GenCyber camp will be held again in the summer of 2021. Mello-Stark believes the workplace of the future is going to demand different skills. Learning how to maintain a safe online environment and to guard against encroachments on individual rights and privacies are some of them.