UMD Hosts Cool Careers in Cybersecurity Event to Attract Young Women to STEM

COLLEGE PARK, Md., Nov. 12, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following media advisory is from the A. James Clark School of Engineering:

WHAT: "Annual Cool Careers in CyberSecurity for Girls Summit"—an event where middle school girls have the opportunity to work as CSI investigators for a day by solving an identity theft/cyberbullying crime. The teams will assemble a computer and use digital forensics tools on cell phones, wireless data streams, hard drives and pictures. During this interactive crime-solving event, the girls will learn from women in companies and agencies throughout the state what it takes to navigate the professional pipeline in the vast fields of cybersecurity, information assurance and digital forensics.

WHO: 350 middle school girls from across the state of Maryland will participate in this event, also featuring the following speakers: Michel Cukier, associate director for education at the Maryland Cybersecurity Center (MC2) and associate professor of reliability engineering at the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland; Davina Pruitt-Mentle, executive director of educational technology policy, research and outreach at CyberWatch; and Jennifer Golbeck, director of the Human-Computer Interaction Lab and assistant professor in the iSchool and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland. This event is sponsored by Google, MC2, and the National Science Foundation's CyberWatch Program.

WHEN: Wednesday, November 14, 2012
9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

WHERE: Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center
University of Maryland, College Park

WHY: Despite the gains of the last 20 years in the representation of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, their numbers still lag behind their male counterparts. Researchers have found that until third grade an equal number of boys and girls show interest and feel confident in learning science and technology. However, these numbers continuously decrease for girls throughout middle school and into high school. Cool Careers in CyberSecurity Summits, sponsored by CyberWatch, draws on research that that indicates recruiting and retaining girls to the science and technology fields should include targeted programs to educate women and minorities about STEM career choices.

More Information:

http://www.cyber.umd.edu/education/cool-careers

http://www.edtechpolicy.org/cyberk12/c3workforcecareers.html

SOURCE A. James Clark School of Engineering