Search for: All records

Though general awareness around it may be low, space cyberattacks are an increasingly urgent problem given the vital role that space systems play in the modern world. Open-source or public discussions about it typically revolve around only a couple generic scenarios, namely satellite hacking and signals jamming or spoofing. But there are so many more possibilities. The report offers a scenario-prompt generator—a taxonomy of sorts, called the ICARUS matrix—that can create more than 4 million unique scenario-prompts. We will offer a starting set of 42 scenarios, briefly describing each one, to begin priming the imagination-pump so that many more researchers can bring their diverse expertise and perspectives to bear on the problem. A failure to imagine novel scenarios is a major risk in being taken by surprise and severely harmed by threat actors who are constantly devising new ways, inventive and resourceful ways, to breach the digital systems that control our wired world. To stay vigilant, defenders likewise need to be imaginative to keep up in this adversarial dance between hunter and prey in cybersecurity. More than offering novel scenarios, we will also explore the drivers of the space cybersecurity problem, which include at least seven factors we have identified. For instance, the shared threat of space debris would seem to push rational states and actors to avoid kinetic conflicts in orbit, which weighs in favor of cyberoperations as the dominant form of space conflicts. Outer space is the next frontier for cybersecurity. To guard against space cyberattacks, we need to understand and anticipate them, and imagination is at the very heart of both cybersecurity and frontiers. 

Mentoring interventions, particularly mentoring that incorporates networking, have been effective at meeting the professional needs of women and under-represented minority (URM) faculty. However, women, especially URM women, in STEM careers report feeling left out of networks and thus face decreased social and administrative support. The isolation of women, especially URM women, in engineering in the California State University (CSU) System is apparent in the fact that many CSU engineering departments have only a few women faculty and no more than a single URM woman faculty. Thus, despite current mentoring programs at each CSU campus, there is only a few (if any) other women within their engineering department with whom they may discuss shared experiences. As part of the NSF funded ADVANCE Partnership grant, “Kindling Inter-university Networks for Diverse (KIND) Engineering Faculty Advancement in the California State University System”, in order to address this isolation and to provide mentoring and networking opportunities for women engineering faculty in the CSU system, particularly woman who identify as URM, a series of virtual (to enable cross-campus mentoring), small group setting (to incorporate networking) mentoring events was organized. Another aspect of this initiative emphasizes foreign-born (FB) or foreign-trained (FT) women, a unique focus. Although the speed mentoring events are open to all engineering faculty in the CSU system, there is specific emphasis on those who are normally excluded from formal mentoring. In this paper, the post-event survey results which include the demographics of the participants are reported and the importance and impact of these events are discussed. 

The number of engineering doctoral degrees awarded to foreign-born (international) students has increased in the past three decades. It has resulted in an increase in the foreign-born professoriate across the USA. To address gender parity and address the needs of a diverse student population, many universities are increasingly recruiting foreign-born women faculty. While their immigration status is their transitional identity, they do have a distinctive racial/ethnic identity. Unfortunately, issues of foreign-born faculty, especially women, are understudied. A pilot study was carried out at the California State University System to assess the needs of women faculty. A survey was administered to the engineering faculty (all identity groups) across California State University System. This paper examines the tenure navigation of foreign-born women faculty to identify their needs to attain tenure and promotion successfully. Resource satisfaction between the populations based on gender and foreign-born status are compared. Based on the evidence presented, the authors argue that foreign-born status should be considered as one of the parameters in planning retention programs and addressing intersectionality for engineering academics. Some ongoing efforts at the California State University System are also reported.