Virginia Tech National Security Institute

Faith Jones writes this week in the #DCTC Scholars Blog about the personal growth she's experienced during her project-based summer internship thanks to our strategic partners at Army PEO-Intel Electronic Warfare & Sensors. She's collaborating with 3 fellow #DCTC scholars - Josemari Roque & Sangmuk Kang from Virginia Tech and Jackson Migala from Purdue University on defensive and offensive cybersecurity testing capabilities. The project sponsors have exposed the team to exciting professional development opportunities, to include meeting Mark Gorak, DoD Chief Information Officer. #DCTC scholars represent the best of the next generation of cyber talent! #Faith, #Jomar, and #Jackson, keep an eye out for John Willison! 😁

The Defense Civilian Training Corps (DCTC) pilot program has provided so many rewarding experiences for Virginia Tech students in Cohort 0 over the past year! Very exciting to have more students joining as part of Cohort 1

Laura Freeman, deputy director of VTNSI, will be a featured speaker at the first AI Expo for National Competitiveness starting today! Learn more about the event and visit the expo’s online agenda ⬇

#DCTC scholars Jay Thomas, Brooke Griswold and Nicholas McDermott of Virginia Tech wrote a post for the DCTC blog about a recent immersive learning event with guests from AI Futures. An excerpt: "Being able to directly interact with the content our cohort has spent the past year learning was a really refreshing experience. The puzzles were well thought out, requiring us to use everything we learned to justify our answers. Racing against our peers to unlock the final puzzle box added a level of excitement we hadn’t expected." In the photo, Nicholas is seated at the right, next to Faith Jones and Sarah Hingst. Read this post at https://lnkd.in/g7FhxV9w See all DCTC blog posts at https://lnkd.in/eCmXhx4U

Virginia Tech researchers are helping parents talk to their kids about internet safety through an interactive activity and coloring book! “The book covers topics like protecting your personal information online and not clicking on sketchy links, but it explains those topics in a way that young children can understand and with cute animals so they’ll pay attention,” said Stephanie Travis, director of the Senior Military College Cyber Institute at the Virginia Tech National Security Institute who coauthored it with Christine Billingsley. Read more ⬇ https://lnkd.in/g9Mm6PRz Commonwealth Cyber Initiative Southwest Virginia | Hume Center for National Security and Technology at Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech Defense Civilian Training Corps (DCTC) scholars learn about leadership and teamwork in more ways than you may expect! The scholars rounded out their first year in the pilot program with a MasterChef/Chopped-style team bonding burger cook off 🍔 💪 Up next - they are off to their summer internships in United States Department of Defense related programs through the DCTC pilot program!

Collaboration is key 🗝 Virginia Tech students and faculty in two Virginia Tech National Security Institute and United States Department of Defense (DoD) workforce development programs— Defense Civilian Training Corps (DCTC) and VICEROY — collaborated on complex pilot projects called "Innovation Capstones" this semester. VICEROY undergraduate students and DCTC scholars formed multidisciplinary teams to investigate and deliver prototypes, research results, and solutions impactful to current and emerging DoD problems. At the annual Hume Center Colloquium, students were able to showcase their new skills and achievements to various DoD and Intelligence Community sponsors! 

Thank you to all of our students, faculty and partners that made the 11th Annual Hume Center Colloquium possible! Always an amazing opportunity to spotlight student research and make lasting connections.

Congratulations to Hume Center student researchers Evan, Julia and Nathan who won best poster awards at the recent Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) Student Research Showcase! Evan's poster was titled "The Advantages of Distributed TCAM Firewalls in Automotive Real-Time Switched Zonal Networks" Julia and Nathan's poster was titled "Quantum Approaches to the Quadratic Assignment Problem"

The Virginia Tech National Security Institute is hiring an associate or assistant director for the Mission Systems Division! Check out this exciting opportunity if you're interested in emerging research areas like space situational awareness, autonomy and resilience, maritime remote sensing, cubesats and small satellites, and more! https://lnkd.in/eNAm996p