Students from Washington State University and partner universities from throughout the Pacific Northwest as well as Department of Defense workers will come to the Pullman campus May 18–22 for the fifth edition of the annual VICEROY Northwest Institute for Cybersecurity Education and Research’s (CySER) summer workshop.
During the event, participants will attend presentations, hands-on activities, and discussion sessions on cybersecurity and operations from a variety of cybersecurity faculty, cybersecurity professionals, and VICEROY program representatives. The sessions are free open to the public.
Topics covered will include agentic AI and security; security of AI systems; post-quantum security; hardware security; web security; cyber ethics; and journalism and security.
CJ Maciag, VICEROY national director and director for Cyber-Spectrum Academic Engagement in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, will be keynote speaker.
The workshop will also feature field trips to Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) campuses in Pullman and Moscow as well as a cybersecurity industry panel on May 21. A research showcase and certificate ceremony will be held on May 18 to recognize CySER program participants.
A new feature to the workshop will include a panel of current and former CySER students sharing their experiences participating in the program.
“In a new workshop feature this year, we are excited to include a student panel in the agenda where current and former CySER students will share their experiences from participating in the program,” said Assefaw Gebremedhin, Berry Family Distinguished Associate Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and director of the VICEROY CySER Institute. “It will be awesome to feature two student-driven activities in this year’s workshop: research showcase on the opening day and a panel on the closing day.”
The CySER Institute came about as a result of an award from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Virtual Institutes for Cyber and Electromagnetic Spectrum Research and Employ (VICEROY) initiative in 2021. The initiative established a cybersecurity research and teaching center at WSU, where training is provided to ROTC and DOD-skilled civilian workers in computer science and other majors in cyber basics, operations, or defense, offering bachelor’s degrees as well as specialized certificates. Participating students receive training that integrates cybersecurity education and research with professional skills in teamwork, communication, leadership, and lifelong learning. In recent years, WSU has also instituted a bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, and last year, the university was named a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Research (CAE-R) by the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
The CySER Institute is a WSU-led consortium including partners from Montana State University, the University of Idaho, and Central Washington University. Leadership for the VICEROY initiative is provided by the Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and executed in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory and facilitated by the Griffiss Institute.
