Transdisciplinary Cybersecurity

"The Transdisciplinary Cybersecurity Graduate program is for students of all backgrounds. You do not need to be a coding expert to be successful! The program really prepares you to be a well-rounded cybersecurity expert. You will have the opportunity to learn all types of skills in the program, collaborate with amazing students and learn from highly skilled professors!"

- Divya Anand, New Mexico Tech PhD student

"Being back and able to study with brilliant, yet really down-to-earth new classmates and wonderful teachers, it is fulfilling and keeps my mind active. It has been an interesting journey of hope and faith since I graduated from the department with an MS in computer science, '93/'94. Thank you all!"

- Samuel Yang, Southern University and A&M College

The following are core for all Transdisciplinary Cybersecurity Programs. All core courses are normally offered once per year. See the current catalog for course descriptions and general graduate school requirements.

 CYBS 5061 should be taken in each student's first fall semester. 

The following are core for Transdisciplinary Cybersecurity Programs. Technical elective courses are normally offered once every other year (EOY). See the current catalog for course descriptions.

C^ indicates a requirement of completing the course with C or higher as a prerequisite. 

Additional courses are available as Special Topics Courses (CYBS 5089) based on new research and student demand.

All students are encouraged to pursue internships during the summer or to focus on research. 

Graduate credits (CYBS 5089) in the following cybersecurity areas: cybersecurity policy, psychology of cybersecurity, cybersecurity data science, or cybersecurity technical electives.

The professional masters is a course based program that has research integrated in courses, but does not require additional research. 

For the PM degree students must take:

• All core courses listed above (18 cr)
• 6 credits of technical electives
• 6 credits of cybersecurity area courses

The master of science degree is a research based program where students carry out independent research in addition to completing coursework.

For the MS degree students must take:

• All core courses listed above (18 cr)
• 3 credits of technical electives
• 3 credits of cybersecurity area courses
• Research (either)
  • 6 credits of thesis or
  • 3 credits of independent study and 3 additional credits of cybersecurity area courses

The combined degrees of a MS-CYBS or PM-CYBS along with a BS in an aligned field may be achieved in an accellerated timeframe. Students must complete all of the requirements of the associated BS and the MS-CYBS or PM-CYBS degrees.

Students in the accelerated program may use up to nine 500-level or above credits toward both their BS and either MS-CYBS or PM-CYBS degrees allowing them to complete their degrees in an accelerated timeframe.

A minimum of 68 credits total.

Up to 30 graded credit hours from an appropriate master’s degree, may be included. These must be approved by the student's graduate committee and the program director.

44 hours of graded coursework approved by the student’s advisory committee must include:

• All core courses listed above (18 cr)
• 9 credits of technical electives
• 12 credits of cybersecurity area courses
• Up to 12 graded research credits (CYBS 5081) may be used toward the required graded coursework credits.
• Qualifying Exam: The graduate committee, in consultation with the student, will select a technical paper. The student must perform an in‐depth study of the paper through analysis, modeling, and/or simulation. The student will present the analysis and critique of the paper in a written report and an oral presentation. The written report and the oral presentation constitute the qualifying examination. The exam is designed to test the student’s ability to be successful in the Ph.D. program by demonstrating his/her ability to analyze, critique, solve technical problems, grasp fundamental concepts, solve open problems, and communicate effectively. Normally, the graduate student may only take the qualifying exam once. In case the student did not pass, he/she may appeal to the program chair the decision to be allowed a second critique paper attempt.
• Candidacy Exam: The student must present a detailed proposal including an overview of his/her research area and hypothesis under investigation to the members of his/her graduate committee.The proposal should include an outline of the proposed research, a research timeline, and the papers (and venues for publication) that are expected. The presentation will be open to the public and announced through the program office. This examination may only be taken after a student has passed the qualifying examination.
• Candidacy: The admission to candidacy to the Ph.D. degree requires that the qualifying and candidacy examinations be passed and approved by the graduate committee; after which the student may enroll in CYBS 5095: Dissertation.
• Dissertation (24 credit hours): CYBS 5095

The average time in which well-prepared students may be able to expect to complete their degrees is in the table below, depending on the student's preparation, focus, dedication, and proficiency in research. 

* Due to the complexity and variability of research, the time to degree for MS and PhD vary substantially and average expected times are shown here. Time to complete research, particularly in the PhD program, should be expected to be longer -- in many cases 5-6 years (beyond BS) is more typical. Accelerated Masters students have completed in one year. 

Many students in these program are supported by their employers or provide their own funding. However, full time students may recieve support either through the NMCCoE, typically on graduate contracts associated with external grants or contracts. Students with special skills or needs should make those clear in their graduate applicatoin. 

Areas below are areas in which faculty affiliated with the Transdisciplinary Cybersecurity programs are interested in advising research students.

• B. Burnham – Foundations of Cybersecurity, Policy
• T. Dotson – Organizational High Reliability, User Experience Research Methods
• T. Elliott – User Experience Research Methods, Psycolinguistics, Perception.
• A. El Osery – Cyber Physical Systems
• A. Ghosh - Health Systems, Health Sensing, and Health Monitoring for Naval and Weapons Systems
• C. ChoGlueck - Ethics, Values and Norms Impact on Laws and Regulations, Science, Technology Policy
• T. Harper - Cybersecurity Policy
• C. Jeffery – Program Execution Monitoring, Programming Language Support
• K. Lee – Multi-Robot Systems
• L. Liebrock – Cybersecurity, Cybersecurity Auditing, Enterprise-wide Forensics, Parallel Processing, Security Metrics, Threat Intelligence, Visualization, Well Posedness
• B. Majumdar – Additive Manufacturing
• S. Mazumdar – Data Management, Data Science, Information Privacy
• L. Pierson – Network Security, Hardware Security Design, Formal Security Methods, Cryptographic Policy Enforcement Mechanisms
• D. Quist – Malware, Reverse Engineering
• R. Ramyaa – Artificial Intelligence
• C. Reitz - Cybersecurity Law
• D. Shin – System Security, Software Engineering/Security, Usable Security
• H. Soliman –Machine Learning
• S. Teare - Encryption, Smart Instrumentation, Cyber Physical Systems
• K. Tietjen – Incident Response and Digital Forensics, Threat Intelligence, Data Science Focused on Threat Detection and Response, Cyber Operations Process Engineering/Quality Management
• J. Zheng – Cybersecurity, Machine Learning, Mobile Computing, Networking, Smart Grids, Intelligent Manufacturing, Smart Agriculture