There is a dearth of students, and particularly of minoritized students (e.g., those who identify as women, black or african american, and or hispanic or latinx) in computing, and especially those who…

The Florida International University has been awarded a $1,000,000 Cooperative Agreement from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate under the Scientific Leadership Awards (CFDA 97.062) program. The award is to establish the Advanced Education and Research for Machine Learning-Driven Critical Infrastructure Resilience (ADMIRE) Center, which will provide an integrated research and education framework with a special focus on critical infrastructure resilience, cybersecurity, and machine learning. The center will: 1) Provide scholarships and mentoring to 2-year and 4-year students, including those from underrepresented minorities, to develop a pipeline for homeland security STEM careers; 2) Develop and integrate homeland security STEM curriculum and research into existing and new courses; 3) Conduct innovative research on critical infrastructure resilience and security using advanced machine learning techniques; and 4) Build capacity for homeland security STEM research and education by engaging early career faculty. The project will partner with Miami Dade College and three DHS Centers of Excellence to broaden participation and scale the education and research outcomes.

There is a dearth of students, and particularly of minoritized students (e.g., those who identify as women, black or african american, and or hispanic or latinx) in computing, and especially those who are qualified for professions in homeland security enterprise (HSE). To broaden participation enhance education, research, and workforce development in the homeland security science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (HS-stem) areas and build capacity for college students, university students, and faculty to make connections with HSE, florida international university (FIU) proposes the creation of the advanced education and research for machine learning-driven critical infrastructure resilience (admire) center. The admire center is expected to provide an integrated research and education framework with a special focus on three of the DHS operational topics of interest, i.e., critical infrastructure resilience, cybersecurity, and machine learning (ML). The center benefits from collaborations with miami dade college (MDC), three DHS centers of excellence (COE), and other HSE partners to enrich the proposed education and research activities for FIU and MDC students, as well as faculty. The project will involve a team of seven highly productive faculty members (four of whom are early career faculty) at fius knight foundation school of computing and information sciences and the school of universal computing, construction, and engineering education, who have strong expertise in HS-stem topics, as well as computing and engineering education and research. In order to educate, train, and mentor students and early career faculty, the center will conduct the following education and research activities: (1) the center will provide scholarships to create a sustainable pipeline for 2-year MDC students to transition to FIU, as well as offering scholarships to FIU undergraduate and graduate students specialized in HS-stem areas to prepare them for HSE careers, provide them with education, mentoring, and professional development resources, assist them with internship and career placement at research and government labs, and at our partner DHS coes (2) the center will develop and integrate HS-stem teaching modules and research outcomes in existing computer science, information technology, cybersecurity, data science, and engineering courses at FIU, and develop new courses to explore innovative areas of deploying ML for critical infrastructure resilience and security (3) strong teams of researchers will conduct innovative research projects in important areas of critical infrastructure resilience and security using advanced ML techniques (4) the center will build capacity for research and education on HS-stem topics by engaging early career faculty with the support mentorship from senior faculty participants, each with prior engagement with DHS, and in collaboration with three DHS coes and other HSE partners (5) the centers research outcomes will enlist technology transfer activities for HSE supported by startup FIU and our industry partners and the education and research outcomes will be disseminated to other institutions for integration in their curriculum and ensure scalability of our HS-stem education efforts. The center will partner with three DHS coes. The centers activities align well with the coes goals on HS-stem education, training, and workforce development and will provide resources for promoting the active involvement of minoritized groups in these coes. We have developed and defined quantitative and qualitative evaluation metrics to monitor and evaluate the program and its impact on capacity building for FIU and MDC, and share the performance metrics with the DHS and our external advisory board for evaluation and feedback. Independent evaluation will also be performed periodically to ensure programmatic alignment with DHS goals.