RENO - The University of Nevada, Reno is establishing the Cyber Security Center, which will support economic development in Nevada through education, research and outreach to industry by addressing the growing national challenge of cyber security.
"We will be taking a holistic approach to cyber security, blending the technical aspects of protecting cyberspace with a range of disciplines from business to the liberal arts," said Kevin Carman, provost and executive vice president at the university. "We will have a strong alliance with the private sector throughout Nevada."
The Cyber Security Center, approved by the Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents at its meeting in December, will work on solutions to cyber attacks, educate students and conduct relevant research. The multiple faculty disciplines involved include computer science and engineering, political science, information studies, journalism, criminal justice, mathematics, philosophy, psychology and military science.
The effort to develop the center began in spring 2013 with a series of meetings at the Reno campus, which involved academic deans, faculty, the provost and president of the university and internationally recognized cyber-security scholar Dr. John Arquilla, a professor in and chair of the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif.
"The answers to cyber security and protecting the country's cyber infrastructure are not to be found in a single discipline - it takes cross-disciplinary team intelligence," Arquilla said. "This is truly a grand challenge, requiring bringing together the best minds from many academic fields. This is truly pioneering a new approach to higher education, one that will greatly benefit the Cyber Security Center."
The new center will address issues in a variety of industries that have enormous cyber security implications for economic development in Nevada, such as banking, health care, data centers, online gaming, the power grid and the large and growing military presence in the state.
"Nevada is the ideal place for this initiative, as all the pieces come together here on a very manageable scale: industry, law enforcement, education and research," Arquilla said.
The university is hiring three new faculty members with expertise in cyber security, one each in in the colleges of business, liberal arts and engineering.[[In-content Ad]]
