Blair Taylor

Clinical Associate Professor of Computer and Information Sciences
Towson University

Cybersecurity is Not a Fad: Why Cyber is a Game Changer for Computer Science Education

First, the bad news - Cybersecurity is here to stay. Threats are escalating and organizations are increasingly vulnerable. Hackers are smarter, there are more of them, and they continue to wreak havoc across critical infrastructure systems. There is a huge, growing shortfall of cyber talent. All students, and especially computer science students, need to learn cyber, but there is an acute shortage of cybersecurity faculty.

The good news – Cybersecurity is here to stay. We continue to need skilled cyber workers. Students like cyber. Cyber can draw more students to Computer Science and create opportunities for Computer Science faculty.

Dr. Blair Taylor will share her experiences building cyber curriculum from the classroom perspective and from her experience working with NSA to build a National Cybersecurity Curriculum Program.

Bio

Dr. Blair Taylor is an award-winning educator with 20+ years’ experience in academia. She is a national expert in cybersecurity education and curriculum development. As a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at Towson University, she has received over $5 million of external funding. Her projects include Security Injections @ Towson, which provides security modules for integrating security across the curriculum and is a national model for teaching secure coding to introductory programming students, and SPLASH, which offers Secure Programming Logic for college credit to high school girls.

Dr. Taylor also works with NSA’s College of Cyber as a Subject Matter Expert on long-term strategies to increase the pipeline of qualified students and build the nations’ cyber workforce. These programs include the National Cybersecurity Curriculum Program and the Cyber Cube.

Dr. Taylor has received the University System of Maryland Regents Award for Teaching, the Fisher College of Science and Mathematics Outstanding Faculty Award and the Business Outreach Award. She has been recognized as one of 5O Women to Watch by the Baltimore Sun Magazine and one of Maryland’s top female tech leaders by MDBIZNews. She holds a B.A. in Mathematical Science and an M.S. in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and a doctorate in Applied Information Technology from Towson University.