Ph.D. in Engineering: Security Focus

The College of Engineering and Applied Science of UCCS offers a new Security specialty focus in the Ph.D. in Engineering degree program, starting in Fall 2008. The nation-wide unique specialty will offer the Security curriculum for students to study and conduct multi-disciplinary research in areas of cyber security, physical security, and homeland security, which have become critical and increasingly urgent in today’s personal, business, and government operations. This new multi-disciplinary concentration integrates the existing curriculum and research thrusts, meeting the grand challenges of security, and offering flexible distance education schedule with the quality expected at the University of Colorado.

The program is research-oriented with a strong self-learning component. One uniqueness of the program is that it accommodates distance education. The plan of study is decided by the Ph.D. advisor and the Advisory Committee according to the student’s specific research topic. Students are allowed to take on-line classes and take independent study via distance learning. Beyond the traditional learning component, the students in the program will be required to have at least 3 months of operational security experience (such as internship or training), as determined by the Advisory Committee. The second uniqueness of the program is the use of short intense workshops where students and faculty will meet to discuss emergent theories and techniques in security, and carry out exercises simulating critical security events. They will provide opportunities for students to apply what they learn in the self-paced courses and to learn how to coordinate and cooperate in cyber war and homeland defense scenarios. Students have to come to the workshop at least once a year to report their research progress in the past year and the plan for the next year.

Program Correspondence

	Ph.D. in Engineering with a focus in Security Committee (PESC) College of Engineering and Applied Science 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, PO Box 7150 Colorado Springs, CO 80933-7150		Phone: (719) 262 3493(Office)
	Email: zbo@cs.uccs.edu		Fax: (719) 262 3369