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“NIST’s NICE Program”

by Ernest McDuffie

Abstract

Cybersecurity has been identified as one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation. The National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) was established to help face this challenge head on with a strategy to build a cyber-savvy nation through training, awareness, K through post-graduate educational programs, and professional development for federal security professionals. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), already working to build international consensus in a variety of domains of science and technology, has been given a coordination role in the initiative. NIST supports the Administration’s cyberspace mission, along with the larger agenda for education and innovation, through the coordination, cooperation, focus, public engagement, technology transfer, and sustainability of NICE. While each of the co-leads have specific accountabilities within the initiative, implementation of the initiative will be very much a collaborative effort between federal, state and local government, industry, academia, non-government organizations and the general public. NIST will help to facilitate that collaboration, in part through this website. NICE will establish an operational, sustainable, and continually improving Cybersecurity education program for multiple segments of the nation on correct application of sound cyber practices.

About the Speaker

In early 2010 the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was selected as the lead agency for the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) and they identified Dr. McDuffie to be the Leader of this effort and is now in transition between two positions. He was appointed (the other position) Associate Director of the National Coordination Office (NCO) for Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) in February 2008. From early September 2009 until early November 2009 he served as Acting Director of the NCO. His appointment as the Associate Director of the NCO comes after joining the NIST as a Computer Scientist in their Information Technology Laboratory, Office of Federal and Industrial Relations. In August 2006, Dr. McDuffie joined the NCO where he served as the Technical Coordinator for the Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA) Interagency Working Group (IWG), Federal Agency Administration of Science and Technology Education and Research (FASTER) Committee of Practice (CoP), and the Software Design and Productivity (SDP) Coordination Group (CG).

Prior to joining the NCO, Dr. McDuffie served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) – Science and Technology for America’s Readiness (N-STAR) Initiative. He served as the Lead Program Director for the Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service (SFS) Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF).

He served as an Assistant Professor at Florida State University in the Department of Computer Science where he taught both graduate and undergraduate courses in CS for seven years. Dr. McDuffie has participated in software engineering projects for the U.S. Air Force, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the Federal Aviation Administration, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the National Security Agency.

Dr. McDuffie received his Ph.D. and M.S. degrees in Computer Science from the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Florida.

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