Taylor University’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering has added a major in Cybersecurity to their program offerings.
Officially called Computer Science/Cybersecurity, the major is designed to meet the curricular and learning outcome standards of the Association for Computing Machinery and the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD). Cybersecurity students will gain a solid computer science education with an emphasis on cybersecurity practices and applications, including digital forensics and software reverse engineering.
The program builds on the department’s ongoing legacy of cybersecurity work, which includes a recent $100,000 grant to do computer virus research for Lockheed Martin. More than half of the department’s faculty have experience in cybersecurity.
The effort toward the new major was spearheaded by Dr. Dannie Stanley, who has a PhD in computer security and conducts research in operating systems and networking with an emphasis on computer security. Stanley’s primary PhD advisor was Dr. Eugene H. Spafford, a pioneer in the field and a member of the National Cyber Security Hall of Fame.
Graduates will be well prepared for cybersecurity careers, a field that in 2015 was estimated to have 209,000 unfilled positions in the US and one million worldwide, according to Peninsula Press.