From scholarships to cross-university classes, VICEROY preps Khoury students for cyber defense

This article is part two of a two-part feature. Read part one, “As cyber attacks surge, the Defense Department turns to universities for cybersecurity grads.”

Charlie Deane and Simran Arneja took wildly divergent roads to cybersecurity.

After taking an early interest in robotics and hardware, Arneja landed a high school internship at the US Military Academy. There she was exposed, she says, “not just to military robots, but to the atmosphere of cybersecurity, and how cybersecurity expertise was used in the military.” She emerged from the internship bent on bolstering her security background.

Though his father’s cybersecurity career exerted some influence, Deane’s spark came during the pandemic, when he began reselling merchandise to pass the time.

“To bypass rudimentary restrictions on e-commerce sites I had to rotate IP addresses, or else the site would block me,” Deane explains. “So I figured out how to source hundreds of thousands of IP addresses, set up infrastructure in Ashburn, Virginia, and create proxies that looked like residential addresses. All of that boosted my knowledge of cybersecurity.”

Several years later, the pair found themselves at Khoury College — Arneja a rising fourth-year CS and business administration major, Deane a rising third-year CS major. When the Department of Defense, Air Force Research Laboratory, and Griffiss Institute partnered with Northeastern and other universities to form the VICEROY DECREE program, both students saw their chance to supplement their computer science studies with cybersecurity courses.

“I’m a big advocate for the program because it’s really interesting, especially if you’re taking only one degree,” says Arneja. “It’s great for people who are interested, but aren’t sure if they want to do this as a major yet.”

Undergraduate Northeastern students ideally apply to VICEROY DECREE during their second or third years. The timeline ensures they have both the background knowledge and the schedule bandwidth required to complete the program, says Jose Sierra, VICEROY DECREE’s principal investigator. Faculty consider applicants’ grades, interest in cybersecurity, and post-program plans, and will prioritize students who are veterans, ROTC, women, or members of groups underrepresented in the field.

Once admitted, a student takes 8–10 credits of VICEROY DECREE courses in addition to their existing degrees; the program’s scholarship covers the extra tuition. Students have free reign to take whatever VICEROY DECREE courses interest them through Northeastern or a partner university, be they strategic foreign languages like Russian and Arabic or technical topics like “Malware Analysis” and “Applied Cryptography.” Each university has their own course offerings based on their existing specializations: Northeastern in data science, Northern Arizona University in cryptography, the University of Houston in physics and the electromagnetic spectrum, and the University of South Carolina in advanced networking.

Arneja began her VICEROY DECREE coursework with a data science class at Northeastern and will take a class through another institution in the fall; she says the program helps her squeeze in courses that otherwise wouldn’t be a logistical fit. For his part, Deane took a cryptography course through Northern Arizona University that focused on public infrastructure, asymmetric cryptography, and elliptic-curve cryptography.

“It was very challenging at first, and I wasn’t sure what I’d gotten myself into,” Deane recalls. “But it was invaluable. I learned a lot about the cryptographic infrastructure that powers our modern systems and secures our communication, as well as the math behind it.”

Arneja hopes to involve herself in research, as VICEROY DECREE opens the doors to some labs that would normally be limited to graduate students. For her, it’s all about being on the cutting edge of defense technology.

“The appeal of this program is the defense aspect, which I’ve always been interested in, but which can be difficult to get into,” she says. “I like the idea of being involved in something I can’t talk about because it’s light-years ahead of what commercial companies are doing … making aircraft disappear off radar, mind puzzles in defense. That’s part of why I’m doing the program; I get to dip my feet into research in that area.”

Deane’s long-term goal is to found his own company crafting cybersecurity solutions for government and enterprise needs in a world of increasing internet turmoil. But first, he wants to stretch his legs in a DoD role.

“The only way to enter the realm of cybersecurity on a global stage is at a government facility or defense contractor,” Deane says. “Defense contracting, the military, the NSA — it all seems very daunting. So hopefully VICEROY DECREE will open locked doors and let me talk to people I need to talk to.”

VICEROY DECREE offers students like Deane and Arneja mentors — typically graduate or doctoral students who are also veterans and defense industry employees. Students change mentors each semester and can match with someone whose career aligns with their interests. Arneja’s current mentor works at Raytheon, where Arneja is considering employment post-graduation.

“He has access to a lot of networks and people, which is very helpful because I’m interested in many different things,” Arneja says. “I would definitely want to take advantage of his vast network, tour some of the facilities, see the inner workings of companies like Raytheon — just because I’m trying to figure out whether I want to pursue the engineering side or more cloud-based stuff.”

“We met up every week to discuss life, and he helped me set goals and stay on track,” Deane says of his mentor, a graduate fellow researching machine learning models for 2D quantum materials and condensed matter physics on graphene. “You have someone you can bounce ideas off of, talk to on a casual and professional basis, and who can help you align what you’re doing in school with your professional and defense-related goals.”

And the students aren’t the only ones setting up a future in cybersecurity.

“The goal for Northeastern is to be a leader in cybersecurity research and education, to be an institution whose graduates are truly experts in cybersecurity, and to create awareness that Northeastern is the place to be for cybersecurity,” says Aanjhan Ranganathan, the program’s co-principal investigator. “It’s great to see folks across different universities join under a single umbrella, and from Northeastern’s standpoint, it’s great to lead such a project.”

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