Case Western Reserve, Cleveland State and Mercyhurst to collaborate on new cybersecurity focus

Three academic institutions—Case Western Reserve, Mercyhurst and Cleveland State universities—each maintain nationally recognized programs in the science of cybersecurity. Today, they announced plans to share their individual expertise and collectively form the North Coast Cyber Research and Training Alliance to propel advances in the expanding field. The agreement to jointly develop cybersecurity education, research and training programs in Western Pennsylvania and Northeast Ohio will leverage the unique combination of strengths of the three schools:

• Cyber engineering and hardware solutions, Case School of Engineering at Case Western Reserve;
• Cyber intelligence threat analysis and analytics: Mercyhurst University’s Ridge College of Intelligence Studies & Applied Sciences;
• Cyber regulatory and policy analysis, Center for Cybersecurity and Privacy Protection at Cleveland State University’s Cleveland-Marshall College of Law.

"The multidisciplinary collaboration between Mercyhurst, Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University provides the complementary expertise required to address complex cybersecurity concerns across a variety of application areas," said Ken Loparo, the Nord Professor of Engineering in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Case Western Reserve. "Case Western Reserve's Case School of Engineering provides expertise in the security of embedded devices and wired/wireless networks, secure-cloud computing and systems-level operational security for cyber-physical systems." “The alliance opens the door to a variety of intriguing projects and new funding opportunities that will enable students to confront authentic problems across the full range of cyber disciplines,” said Caleb Pifer, vice president for external relations and advancement at Mercyhurst. “We are pleased to contribute our strengths in legal technology and policy to the new alliance,” said Lee Fisher, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Dean and Joseph C. Hostetler-BakerHostetler Chair in Law. “The collaboration will prepare students for a cyber workforce in which complex problems will need to be solved at the intersection of disciplines and sectors.”

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For more information, contact Bill Lubinger at william.lubinger@case.edu.  This article was originally published Feb. 28, 2018.