Georgia Tech is bolstering its reputation as a top-tier school for future cybersecurity professionals. It announced its new School of Cybersecurity and Privacy Tuesday, calling it a first-of-its-kind program.
A key factor that sets it apart is that it will merge the traditional cybersecurity enthusiasts from computer science and programming backgrounds with the school's law, business and cultural researchers and resources.
The new school will be led by interim chair Rich DeMillo, who is the chair of the computer science department and a well-established computer science expert who once served as CTO at Hewlett-Packard. Georgia Tech plans a nationwide search this fall to hire several faculty members and a founding chairperson.
“Cybersecurity is not just a personal issue — our credit cards or identities quickly come to mind — but it has an even larger impact on national security, financial markets, even power grids,” Steve McLaughlin, dean of Georgia Tech’s College of Engineering, said in a news release. “That is why the new School of Cybersecurity and Privacy is so important at this time. Cybersecurity, privacy, and related policies dominate the priorities of many organizations, and the need for advanced research and talent is outpacing supply."
Georgia Tech was already trending ahead of most major universities in cybersecurity — it already has a master's degree program, several certification programs and the Institute for Information Security and Privacy. Meanwhile, one of its professors, Alexandra Boldyreva, recently won the Test of Time Award from the International Conference on Practice and Theory in Public Key Cryptography for her work on multi-user digital signatures.
Georgia Tech has been ranked the top cybersecurity undergraduate program in the country by U.S. News & World Report, and it has more than 500 cybersecurity researches across its departments.
