Tenure-Track Associate Professor/Full Professor of Information Assurance (Cybersecurity) in the School of Interdisciplinary Informatics

Applications are invited for a tenure-track position at the Associate Professor/Full Professor level in Information Assurance beginning August 2013. Candidates must have a distinguished research, publication, teaching and service record, and demonstrated leadership ability in developing and expanding (funded) research programs. The salary for this position is highly competitive and funding for doctoral students and post-docs is available. Candidates are expected to have a terminal degree in a closely related field to Information Assurance (cybersecurity).

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Congratulations to UNO's Team NULLify

Congratulations to UNO’s team NULLify for coming in 8th out of 174 undergraduate teams at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University’s (NYU-POLY) CSAW Capture the Flag Competition.

The CSAW Capture the Flag is an annual international computer security contest where teams from across the world solve technical security challenges to find “flags” and earn points. Over 1,200 teams competed September 28 through September 30, with the top 15 undergraduate teams qualifying for the finals. When asked about the 48-hour competition, Michael Kunz, one of team NULLify’s leaders said, “The competition is actually very friendly. People are more than willing to help each other out and it is very much a group effort. We have people from all age groups and skillsets. At times it can be very intense and very exciting with people high fiving after solving a challenge, but we try to maintain a friendly, informative environment so all can learn. The teams taunt each other, all in good humor, and it’s truly a culture you have to experience to understand.”

To prepare for this type of competition, NULLify meets every week, practicing security topics not taught in the classroom and participating in other Capture the Flag competitions. This is the second year the team has qualified for finals in this event. Justin Roberts, another of this year’s team leaders, got to attend the finals in New York in 2011. He said “My favorite part was going to New York. The problems were fun, but getting to meet the judges in NY was unbelievable.” The finals this year will again take place in New York at NYU-POLY, November 15-17. Representing UNO is George Kreick, Michael George, Jon Von Kampen, and Devan Jung.

Stratcom, NU Announce Partnership

On Oct. 11, U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) announced a partnership with the NU system to form a University-Affiliated Research Center (UARC). This research and development institute will use faculty from all campuses to work within their strong fields, and contribute work toward national security functions. This new center will have long lasting benefits to the NU system, including UNO.

The initial research funding is $84 million, and the expectation is that funding and research will only expand as the program takes root. At UNO, where STRATCOM has been a long-time partner, computer security and technology will play a large role. The main research fields listed included nuclear, chemical, and biological detection, passive defense against weapons of mass destruction, and consequence management. Other fields include space, cyber, and telecommunications law.

Currently, UARCs are only present on 13 other of the most decorated research campuses including MIT and Penn State, so the inclusion of the NU system is a testament to the great work of the faculty and administration at each and every campus. NU’s President Milliken said, “This puts us in unique company... This is great company for the University of Nebraska and a highly sought-after distinction.” For more information, please visit UNO Gateway.

Invigorating Opportunities for Information Assurance Emerge at SI2

The new Master of Science program in Information Assurance provides the opportunity for those with Bachelor's degrees in Information Assurance to advance their education and skills though a graduate level experience housed within the School of Interdisciplinary Informatics (SI2).

"Information security is considered by many to be one of the main challenges of our generation," IS&T Dean Hesham Ali said, "Properly addressing Information security concerns is critical not only to economic prosperity but also to national security, and UNO's information assurance program is regarded as one of the best in the country."

This exciting opportunity provides Master's-level education in the management and rigorous technical assessment of information-related risks by ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data. Potential job prospects for graduates with this degree range from federal government departments to healthcare providers.

Prospective students are open to apply for admittance into UNO for the Fall 2012 semester. For questions about the program or the approval process, contact:

Bill Mahoney, Executive Director of NUCIA wmahoney@unomaha.edu | 402.554.3975

Ann Fruhling, Director of the School of Interdisciplinary Informatics (SI2) afruhling@unomaha.edu | 402.554.4902

Carla Frakes, Graduate Advisor cfrakes@unomaha.edu | 402.554.2073

SI2 Calls for Visiting Research Associate Applicants

The School of Interdisciplinary Informatics (Si2) focuses on expanding and innovating the role of information technology through collaboration with other areas such as biology, health care, business, the arts, and engineering. The School invites applications for a research associate for the 2012-2013 academic year. Candidates must possess a doctorate in Bioinformatics, Health Informatics, Computer Science, Management Information Systems or a related field. Candidates with focused research in bioinformatics, healthcare informatics, human computer interaction, stochastic modeling, and artificial intelligence are especially encouraged to apply. To apply and for more information please visit our web site at http://www.unomaha.edu/humanresources/employment.php. All applicants are required to submit a cover letter, curriculum vita and a list of references via the web site. The candidate will be expected to work with school faculty to develop and enhance research and funding capabilities

Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the position is filled.

UNO has a strong commitment to achieving diversity. We encourage applications from under-represented groups, women and persons of color.

View Official Posting and Application Instructions

For the eighth time, cybersecurity students from around the world are preparing for the year's premier event--the CSAW Cybersecurity Competition at NYU-Poly. The CSAW "Capture The Flag" (CTF) competition is a contest designed to evaluate application security skills. Competitors will attack vulnerable applications and solve offensive challenges. Challenges are divided into technical categories and assigned point values based on how difficult they are. The CSAW CTF is loosely based on the widely known DEFCON Capture The Flag competition. CTF is over and the results are posted here.

Our undergraduate team finished 23rd out 207 total teams. They finished 10th among all 74 undergraduate teams. Most importantly, they finished 7th among US undergraduate teams, so they won the qualifying round and now CSAW will fly four of the team members (in November) to compete with 10 other teams on-site in New York, where the prizes include cash and scholarships to NYU-Poly. Schools we beat include MIT and University of North Carolina.

Congratulations are due to Chad Spence, Aaron Hiltgen, and Ujjwal Bhattarai who worked all summer getting STEAL-2 reconfigured, setting up the lab for the competition, collecting a vast set of tools, and organizing their schedules so that one of them was always there for the entire 48-hrs.

Congratulations are also due to the all the faculty who taught these students how to think through a very diverse set of challenges.

Most of all, congratulations to the students who organized themselves, competed, cooperated, and won the right to compete at a higher level.

A mobile application for individuals with special dietary needs, called Your Happy Plate, won first-place honors at Startup Weekend Omaha, a 54-hour cram session of brainstorming, coding and business development.

The event featured 18 teams vying to create a legitimate business out of an idea in just more than two days. Each team gave a pitch before a panel of judges selected the winner.

Your Happy Plate was brewed up by merging ideas for nutrition and food allergy applications from Francesca Cutrera, a freshman at the University of Nebraska at Omaha who has celiac sprue disease, an intolerance for gluten, and Colin Roberts, director of business development at Accent Cost Containment Solutions.

Cutrera said Monday that the app would help people with food allergies like hers or people, such as diabetics, with other nutritional needs know what is in the food that they buy from grocery stores or restaurants.

While shopping, you can use the app to scan the barcodes of items, and it will tell you whether or not the items in the food correlate with your nutritional needs, Cutrera said.

For now, the application will target those with food allergies and diabetics, but eventually it will expand to help people on diets, people trying to hit nutritional goals and people with specific food preferences. (Hold the onions, please!)

The mobile app isn't available yet, but the group expects it to be downloadable on virtually all mobile platforms soon for $1.99.

The team that developed, built and pitched the business idea includes Cutrera, Roberts, Jon Burlingame, Mike Cutrera, Brian Fritzsche, Trevor Savage, Sandi Barr and Barbara Heinlein.

The team already has a number of investment leads, Cutrera said, and has an appointment to meet with ConAgra Foods Inc. about including the company's food products in the Your Happy Plate database. For more information please visit http://www.omaha.com/.

The University of Nebraska at Omaha provides a variety of quality research and creative activity opportunities for students. Students at School of Interdisciplinary Informatics showcased their research and creative activity as oral presentations, performances, exhibits and posters. Thank you and congratulations for the students, faculty and staffs who participated at UNO research fair with great effort.