ECE students among winners of 2011 ITI undergraduate scholarships

10/12/2011 Jenny Applequist, Information Trust Institute

ECE students Joel Van Der Woude and Ross Wolf were among five recipients of the Information Trust Institute scholarships under its Illinois Cyber Security Scholars Program.

Written by Jenny Applequist, Information Trust Institute

The 2011 ICSSP scholarship recipients were (from left) Joel Van Der Woude, Ross Wolf, Ted Pacyga, Carlo DePaolis, and Aaron Phelps.
The 2011 ICSSP scholarship recipients were (from left) Joel Van Der Woude, Ross Wolf, Ted Pacyga, Carlo DePaolis, and Aaron Phelps.

The Information Trust Institute (ITI) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has announced the 2011 recipients of scholarships under its Illinois Cyber Security Scholars Program (ICSSP), which supports undergraduate students at Illinois who are U.S. citizens working towards careers in information trust.

The 2011 winners include:

  • Carlo DePaolis, a junior from Leavenworth, Kansas, majoring in computer science
  • Ted Pacyga, a senior from Arlington Heights, Illinois, majoring in computer science
  • Aaron Phelps, a junior from Belleville, Illinois, majoring in computer science
  • Joel Van Der Woude, a senior from Hoffman Estates, Illinois, majoring in computer engineering
  • Ross Wolf, a junior from Polo, Illinois, majoring in computer engineering

The winners were selected from a competitive pool of applicants following a review process designed to identify students with the greatest potential to succeed in careers related to information trust. Dr. Masooda Bashir, who is ITI's Assistant Director for Social Trust Initiatives and the program director of the ICSSP program, praised the recipients. "These scholarship recipients are especially talented and bright students with a strong interest in this field of study," she said. "This scholarship will give them an excellent opportunity to build careers in information assurance and security."

The scholarship recipients have a broad range of technical interests and career goals, but all of them are looking forward to the benefits of participating in the ICSSP program. Phelps, who plans to build a career in using artificial intelligence and cryptography approaches to ensure trustworthiness in cloud computing, said that "ICSSP is not so much a scholarship as it is a career acceleration program. The experience you get from working closely with like-minded peers and global leaders in computer security is invaluable in finding your perfect niche in this ever-expanding field."

ICSSP was created in 2009 with $1.25 million in funding from the Federal Cyber Service: Scholarship for Service (SFS) program of the National Science Foundation. SFS's mission is to increase the number of students entering the fields of computer security and information assurance, with the ultimate objective of improving the U.S. government's ability to protect its own information infrastructure.

Each participating student will receive a scholarship and stipend covering the last two years of undergraduate study, and in exchange will commit to work for two years following graduation as an information assurance specialist in the federal government.

Professor Roy Campbell of the Department of Computer Science and ITI at Illinois is the principal investigator of ICSSP research. ICSSP scholarships will be awarded annually, and applications will be due in the spring for scholarships beginning in the fall. Interested students can visit the ITI website for more information.


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This story was published October 12, 2011.