FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
New Webpage Shows Cybersecurity Research, Innovations, Education at AAU Universities
As our society grows increasingly dependent on electronic networks for managing everyday life, running our economy, and defending the nation, how can we protect the power grid, telecommunication networks, financial data, “smart” products, and our private information, while still enjoying the benefits technology affords us?
With cybersecurity one of the country’s most pressing challenges, America’s research universities are leading the way toward solutions, with multidisciplinary research, technology development, policy studies, and education.
The Association of American Universities, an association of leading research universities, has created a new webpage, Helping Safeguard the Connected World, which gathers dozens of examples of how AAU universities are attacking the complex issues surrounding cybersecurity.
Examples include research led by the University of California, Los Angeles on a revolutionary way to secure online information, Iowa State researchers’ development of a test bed to help protect the nation’s power grid, a Johns Hopkins University story on the continuing challenges in online voting, and a program at the University of Kansas that is educating a new generation of cybersecurity experts for public service.
The social media conversation about the webpage will use the hashtags, #Cybersecurity and #research.
AAU president Hunter Rawlings noted that the Obama Administration has proposed a major funding increase for federal cybersecurity efforts.
“Cybersecurity is clearly a top national priority,” he said. “AAU universities are playing a vital role in addressing it by conducting important research on how we can protect the electronic systems on which we rely,” he said. “We are highlighting this research and related educational programs because we think it’s important for policymakers and others to understand the work research universities are doing to help solve our nation’s most serious problems.”
This is the second in a series on AAU university research that addresses major societal issues. The first was Helping Solve the Fresh Water Puzzle.
The Association of American Universities is a nonprofit organization of 62 leading public and private research universities in the United States and Canada. Its primary missions are to maintain the productive partnership between research universities and the U.S. government and to advance university research and higher education. AAU’s 60 U.S. universities award nearly one-half of all U.S. doctoral degrees and 55 percent of those in STEM fields.