John Jay Awarded NSA National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Designation

This past May, John Jay College received the honor of being named a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD) from the United States of America National Security Agency (NSA). This notable distinction, which will be valid through the academic year 2030, underscores the College’s ability to meet the increasing demands of academic criteria that serve our nation in the protection of national information. It signifies that our institution has been educating the next generation of talented, highly skilled experts who will defend America’s cyberspace. The work done to receive the designation involved many people and campus departments, including: computer science lecturers Jennifer Holst and Meryem Abouali, Ph.D., and colleagues from the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Office of the Provost, Career Learning Lab, Academic Affairs, Department of Information Technology, Office of the Registrar, Office of External Affairs, Marketing & Communications Office, and Academic Department Chairs. To better understand this prestigious designation, we sat down with Shweta Jain, Ph.D., professor and department chair of mathematics and computer science, and graduate director of digital forensics and cybersecurity. 

What does this NSA designation mean for the College?
It means that the NSA has officially approved our undergraduate cybersecurity program of study. The designation says that our institution as a whole has a strong cybersecurity posture and is a leader in cybersecurity education.

What’s important to understand is that as an institution we have cybersecurity embedded in multiple programs throughout the College, not just the program of study that was validated through the designation. When I was working on the designation, I had to submit the evidence of embedding in our other programs. Like with the criminal justice master’s degree, there is a cyber criminology course which we run jointly between our master’s degree in digital forensics and the criminal justice degree. The undergraduate degrees in security management and public administration both have cybersecurity concepts embedded in them. Cybersecurity is holistically taught and interconnected through many majors at the College.

What advancements do you think set John Jay apart for this designation?
Having cybersecurity in multiple programs is one specific stride that we have, showing that we are conscious of the importance of cybersecurity. Our master’s degree in digital forensics and cybersecurity is one of the first programs in the country which has digital forensics in it. It has a unique combination of criminal justice and cybersecurity.

We also have career support for cybersecurity graduates. The Career Learning Lab gave us an impressive report of all the recruiters who specifically come to the College to hire cybersecurity graduates. Our graduates go on to work within the public and private sector. We have graduates in the NYPD, New York City and state government, and the federal government. I’m very proud to say that we have graduates working in NSA. In fact, John Jay’s academic liaison with NSA is an alumna.

Another important advancement that made John Jay special is the establishment of our Cybercrime Investigations Laboratory and Research Suite at the Center for Cybercrime Studies. The lab is really focused toward forensics, which is integral for investigating crime, getting evidence from devices, and informing the public about the security of these devices.

How does this NSA designation positively impact students and alumni?
First of all, the student will get a certificate stating that they graduated from an NSA-validated program of study. They get an actual credential for that with the National Center of Excellence logo on it.

Secondly, the program is quite different from any other computer science program. It’s not a pure computer science program where you just study theory. Our program has a very hands-on curriculum style with many project-based classes. When students graduate, they already know how to use the latest tools of the industry. A student could graduate and quickly become a cybersecurity analyst in the public or private sector.

What sets our students apart is hands-on knowledge. They can hit the ground running on the job because of the project-based learning that starts during their sophomore year. There are initial programming courses, but then the students get involved in projects. From their sophomore year on, every single course has a lab included in it. Also, many courses that other colleges consider electives, like computer networks or cryptography, are required parts of our curriculum because we know that they are the foundation of cybersecurity.

Why did John Jay establish a cybersecurity program?
Back in 2009, we used to have a computer science program without the cybersecurity concept. We had courses that were more mathematical and computer science oriented. Around that time, the faculty noted that the cybersecurity field was expanding and there were multiple reports on the nation’s cybersecurity talent gap. So, the faculty changed the major and made it cybersecurity focused. That’s when they added a curriculum that was essential for cybersecurity. In just a few years, the students with a cybersecurity major doubled. Now, we have 1,300 declared majors. John Jay was CUNY’s first College to have a cybersecurity-focused computer science program. Now, City Tech, LaGuardia, and Guttman all have cybersecurity programs. We were the pioneers.

What are some of the biggest advancements within the cybersecurity program?
There’s been a lot of progress within John Jay’s cybersecurity program, all to benefit student success and career goals. Right after the undergraduate program started, the graduate program was created. We’re also a part of the CUNY Justice Academy, where students from CUNY community colleges can complete two years of cybersecurity courses and then seamlessly transition to John Jay and finish the remaining two years. We’ve recently established a five-year, dual bachelor’s degree/master’s degree program. The first cohort of this dual program graduated this past May.

We’ve also built a good set of pathways into the cybersecurity and digital forensics master’s degree programs for students with non-STEM backgrounds. This establishes a more varied pipeline into the cybersecurity job market. We recently created a certificate program in cyber security called the Cybersecurity Bridge Certificate Program. It’s a 21-credit program that allows students with any major to take an advanced technical curriculum in cybersecurity and digital forensics, and then be admitted into the master’s degree program directly. There was an alumnus who was a patrol cop with the NYPD. He didn’t have a STEM academic background, but he was interested in cybersecurity. He completed the Cybersecurity Bridge Certificate Program, earned his master’s degree in cybersecurity, and is now working in the NYPD’s Cybersecurity Division.

How does this NSA designation fit with the College’s justice-focused mission?
Everything at John Jay is taught through a justice-focused lens, including cybersecurity. When you have a student who has learned about justice, and all the ideals that our country was founded on, then they enter an agency like the NSA, FBI, CIA, or NYPD, you’re going to have a professional that’s not only talented and prepared for the work ahead of them, but also a person who is acutely aware of concepts of fairness and equality. That mindset is extremely helpful in terms of cybersecurity and forensics in the context of law enforcement and helping to secure our nation’s cyber infrastructure.