
WILLIAMSBURG — The National Security Agency (NSA) has designated William & Mary a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cybersecurity Research (NCAE-R), the university announced.
The designation “is a nod to W&M’s unique, holistic approach to cybersecurity,” according to Adwait Nadkarni, Associate Professor of Computer Science and director of the W&M Cybersecurity Center.
Since its creation last December, the university said the Cybersecurity Center has worked to facilitate interdisciplinary research partnerships among academic units in Arts & Sciences and with W&M’s other schools.
“This approach is particularly critical now, when cybersecurity threats are multi-faceted, and building solutions requires a deep understanding of the systems and computing infrastructure involved, the humans that operate them, and the laws and norms that motivate both system design and human behavior,” Nadkarni said.
W&M said its researchers’ innovative approach “underlies the many achievements that earned the university its CAE-R accreditation.”
According to William & Mary, the NSA’s National Cryptologic School awarded the designation after a rigorous evaluation, assessing both quantitative metrics — numbers of faculty publications, research grants and doctoral students’ dissertations focused on cybersecurity — and such qualitative criteria as graduate employment outcomes, research areas covered and curricular breadth.
According to Nadkarni, W&M easily satisfied these requirements, with faculty and graduate students in the Department of Computer Science exceeding most quantitative criteria twofold.
“Arts & Sciences is proud to have nurtured this excellent department as it grows and prospers,” said Suzanne Raitt, Dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. “The designation is just one of many honors garnered by the computer science department over the past few years.”
Like those many other honors, William & Mary said the new accreditation “is a testament to the talent of researchers in computer science and beyond.”
“This designation demonstrates the recognition that W&M faculty and their graduate students are leaders in ground-breaking cybersecurity research,” said Evgenia Smirni, chair and Sidney P. Chockley Professor of Computer Science.
CAE-R status will help W&M continue to break new ground in the years to come, it said.
“I am optimistic that this designation will open a lot of doors and prove incredibly powerful for our students and faculty,” Nadkarni said.
Douglas C. Schmidt, inaugural dean of W&M’s School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics (soon to house the computer science and data science departments), is especially excited by the opportunities for collaboration and funding from which the university will benefit as a CAE institution.
These new connections and resources will serve W&M’s vision for the new school to become “a hub for interdisciplinary research and education,” Schmidt said.
Supporting interdisciplinary partnerships not only within the School of Computing, Data Science & Physics, but also across campus, the CAE-R accreditation will advance the mission of the university as a whole.
Read the full story at W&M News.