Contact: Phil Hearn
Mississippi State is offering full scholarships over two years--including stipends ranging from $8,000 to $15,000 each year--to students who will commit to careers in computer security and information assurance.
The awards are designed primarily for students in computer science, software engineering, computer engineering, and management information systems. They cover all tuition and fees both years, while providing $8,000-$10,000 annual stipends for undergraduates and as much as $12,000-$15,000 for graduate students.
Scholarship recipients are required to focus in the area of computer security/information assurance and serve summer internships with the federal government at a location to be determined. They also must agree to work for the federal government one year for every year or part of a year that a scholarship is awarded.
"It's a one-for-one payback," said Ray Vaughn, director of MSU's nationally-recognized Center for Computer Security Research.
"The government pays their way through school and they owe one year of federal service for each year of schooling," explained the retired Army colonel who led the university to National Security Agency certification in 2001. "The scholarships are worth a minimum of $50,000 over two years for a graduate student--but what's really important is that once they graduate, they have a career waiting for them."
More than $3 million for the MSU center's Cybercorps Scholarship Program since 1998 has been provided by the Federal Cyber Service Training and Education Initiative and the Department of Defense's Information Assurance Scholarship Program.
Feb. 4, 2005, is the scholarship application deadline. About 10 scholarship awards for the 2005 fall semester will be announced by May 31.
Application procedures may be examined at: http://www.cse.msstate.edu/~security/scholarships.shtml.
For additional information, contact Vaughn by mail c/o Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Center for Computer Security Research, P.O. Box 9637, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762.
He also may be reached at (662) 325-7450; or Ray Vaughn. The center's Web site is http://www.cse.msstate.edu/~security .