Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts Provides Key Expertise to New School of Cybersecurity and Privacy

Posted September 17, 2020

Drawing on its strengths in security studies and cybersecurity policy, the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts plays a prominent role in the newly launched School of Cybersecurity and Privacy. 

The new School, announced Sept. 15, burnishes the Georgia Institute of Technology's No, 1 ranking in undergraduate cybersecurity programs by U.S. News. & World Report and will bring together cybersecurity researchers from across campus to focus on protecting personal privacy and national security. Faculty from the School of Public Policy and the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs are among the School’s inaugural key scholars.

“Solving tomorrow’s toughest cybersecurity problems will require not only a thorough understanding of the technologies and threats involved,” said Ivan Allen College Dean Kaye Husbands Fealing. “It also will require deep expertise in behavioral and policy considerations that must increasingly inform the development and use of new cybersecurity approaches and technologies.”

“By drawing on Georgia Tech’s globally respected expertise in the technology and policy arenas, the School of Cybersecurity and Privacy will extend our leadership in this area with exactly the kind of innovative, interdisciplinary, human-centered thinking and research we need to advance socially responsible and technically practical solutions to these critical issues.”

The school builds on the Institute’s — and Ivan Allen College’s — deep expertise in cybersecurity issues. More than 500 researchers from across campus work on the issue. U.S. News and World Report ranks Georgia Tech No. 1 in undergraduate cybersecurity education.

Within Ivan Allen College, the School of Public Policy offers the Master of Science in Cybersecurity with a specialization in policy as well as the Online Master of Science in Cybersecurity with a policy focus. The school offers courses in issues such as information security policies and strategies; privacy, technology, policy, and law; and the internet and public policy.

“As the current director of the policy track in Georgia Tech’s Master of Science in Cybersecurity, I see the new School as a strengthening of our growing capabilities in cybersecurity research and education,” said Milton Mueller, professor in the School of Public Policy and co-founder and director of the Internet Governance Project.

“The new SCP recognizes the cybersecurity field as an intersection of public policy, international relations, computer science and management. My own research on the relationship between security and Internet governance will be greatly enhanced by the interdisciplinary approach.”

Faculty from the Nunn School also are noted experts in cybersecurity related issues. The school teaches courses as part of the cybersecurity degree program including data analytics and security. The school also offers a Master of Science in International Security that includes cyberwarfare as one potential focus for students to explore.

“I’m excited to be affiliated with the new School to further build bridges across the Institute in approaching these complex problems,” said Associate Professor Margaret E. Kosal. “Putting policy and social science at the forefront of the School is critical. Purely technical approaches aren’t going to solve the current and emerging problems in cybersecurity. These are inherently global challenges.”

Regents Professor Seymour Goodman of the Nunn School and College of Computing, who has studied and written widely on cybersecurity issues, will also be affiliated with the new school.

“I came to Georgia Tech 20 years ago with a view that cybersecurity should be defined to include protection against a wide range of cyber-enabled risks and vulnerabilities that threaten a huge number of people and institutions,” Goodman said. “By bringing together so many of us working on these issues across Georgia Tech, SCP will be a boon for research in this field, as well as in the kind of innovative cross-disciplinary education we need to prepare the workforce of tomorrow to do this work.”

Other Ivan Allen College faculty who will do work in the school include Peter Brecke, a Nunn School associate professor and assistant dean of information technology, Associate Professor Jenna Jordan and Assistant Professor David Muchlinski from the Nunn School; Aaron Santesso, professor in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication; and Nadia Kostyuk, assistant professor in the School of Public Policy.

The School of Cybersecurity and Privacy will be led on an interim basis by Rich DeMillo (Ph.D. ’72), the Charlotte B. and Warren C. Chair of Computer Science and Professor of Management in the College of Computing.

The new school will launch a nationwide search this fall for multiple faculty members and for its founding permanent chair.