In the pipeline

As Andre Marshall was speaking to a reporter about cybersecurity in late July, one of the biggest technology failures in recent memory was unfolding in real time.

A worldwide Microsoft Windows outage on July 19 brought airports, banks, subways — and even the Marshall household — to a standstill.

George Mason University’s vice president for research, innovation and economic impact, Marshall says that his wife, a trial lawyer in Washington, D.C., couldn’t access information for her cases.

“I don’t even know how she’s getting through her trials today because her computer didn’t work and everything is on the computer,” Marshall said at the time.

The massive outage, traced to a failed software update by security firm CrowdStrike, underscored the need for better cybersecurity measures for government and businesses. Simply put, the United States lacks enough skilled cybersecurity workers to protect computer systems from attacks, hacking or even simple software malfunctions.

Virginia has more than 53,000 cybersecurity job openings, the most of any state, according to industry analyst CyberSeek, and George Mason University is a key partner in the state’s efforts to fill the technology talent pipeline.

George Mason recently received nearly $200,00 from the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology for a two-year program to improve cybersecurity workforce development. Professor Nirup Menon and instructor Brian Ngac in the Costello College of Business’ information systems and operations management division will partner with Mobius Consulting and Institute for Defense Analyses to create 12-week projects that aim to give students hands-on experience as they train for cybersecurity careers.

The program is just the latest cybersecurity initiative at George Mason, which is part of the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative, a partnership of Virginia colleges and universities, industries, local governments, economic development offices and other organizations that operate with a shared mission of improving cybersecurity research and workforce training, with an emphasis on the maritime, defense and transportation industries. CCI divides the commonwealth into four regional nodes, with George Mason as lead institution for the Northern Virginia node, a region that has a “voracious appetite for computing talent,” Marshall says, primarily because of the large number of federal government contractors there.

Talent scouts

CCI distributes about $17 million statewide to fund cyber training and research, but that amount is hardly enough to meet the needs of an industry that has a shortfall of nearly 470,000 employees nationally, according to CyberSeek.

“$17 million a year is not enough to establish anyone as a global leader, even though that’s our goal, to help Virginia become a global leader in cybersecurity,” says Liza Wilson Durant, George Mason’s associate provost for strategic initiatives and community engagement and director of CCI’s Northern Virginia node.

Durant says that Virginia’s cybersecurity workforce shortfall averages between 50,000 and 60,000 openings per month, and that the need is expanding as cybersecurity measures adapt to ever-evolving technologies, with many new jobs now requiring experience with artificial intelligence.

“We don’t have enough cyber talent, and now we don’t have enough AI talent,” Durant says. “The technical needs are accelerating in new areas.”

That’s why George Mason is investing heavily in training cybersecurity workers, she says.

“When I talk to my industry partners and say, ‘How do you want me to invest my resources? Research, workforce or entrepreneurship?’ Ten out of 10 times, our industry partners will say, ‘Get me more workforce,’” Durant says, “so I’ve made some big bets on talent.”

George Mason offers 23 separate degree programs that include a cybersecurity focus, Durant says, many of them in the university’s Department of Cyber Security Engineering. Mason also helps students get practical experience by connecting them with internships at firms that have cybersecurity needs.

Dylan Knoff, a 20-year-old computer science major and junior, interned this summer with nonprofit technology research and development company Battelle, gaining experience in reverse engineering software programs to uncover vulnerabilities in security protection. Knoff is also president of the university’s Competitive Cyber club, a group of more than 500 students that competes in cyber contests, from quiz show-style games to digital capture-the-flag sports. In February, the George Mason team beat more than 20 other Virginia college teams in the Commonwealth Cyber Fusion Cup cybersecurity competition.

The games are fun, but have real-world applications, Knoff says. He began competing in cybersecurity contests as a high school student in Florida, and he says that the games’ competitive nature hones fast-paced, critical-thinking skills required in the cybersecurity workplace. Plus, industry professionals often attend the cyber games to give talks and seek talent.

“I’m really passionate about these competitions. Employers enjoy them,” he says, adding that, “I really want to do cybersecurity. It’s not just about stopping bad guys. Cybersecurity is also about protecting confidentiality of critical systems in general. It’s not just cyber protection. It’s about [ensuring protective] redundancy and cyber resiliency. … It’s super vast and requires intimate knowledge.”

It’s also a field where Knoff is confident he will find a good-paying job. “It’s low supply and high demand,” he says.

That’s why George Mason and other CCI institutions run summer camps and hack-a-thons for public school students, as well as training programs for teachers, as part of an enormous effort to get more young people interested in cybersecurity studies.

“We know that if the kids haven’t decided to do a STEM field by middle school, they probably won’t choose it at all,” Durant says.

Many roles to fill

Because the demand for cyber workers is so high right now, the industry can’t wait for middle school students to grow up, go to college and join the workforce. George Mason is looking for more immediate results from its “traineeship” program geared toward older workers in other fields who might consider switching careers — “like a reporter who’s excited about cybersecurity who wants to change his job or an accountant or someone who studied psychology or a transitioning military person or a stay-at-home mom, who was an engineer 20 years ago and wants to come back,” Durant says, describing the types of workers who enroll in the program. It includes 19 weeks of combined training and work experience, with participants getting paid $19,200 for their work —$7,200 for seven weeks of coursework and $12,000 for a 12-week placement with an employer.

“We train them full time for seven weeks in cybersecurity,” Durant says. “At the end of that seven weeks of what you could call a ‘boot camp,’ … we place them for 12 weeks with industry partners, and they go to work.”

Last year, the program attracted more than 400 applications for just 20 positions, she says. Just under half of the participants were women, an underrepresented demographic in the cybersecurity industry. This year, about 300 people applied for 23 openings in June. In the future, more career-switching adults will need to join the ranks of cybersecurity professionals, Durant believes.

“Degrees alone will not meet the demand in the region,” Durant says. “We have to look at alternative pathways to skill people.”

The NIST grant creates a partnership with Mobius Consulting, a woman-owned, Alexandria-based defense industry consultant, and the Institute for Defense Analyses that will create a similar intensive program geared toward people who might not have previously considered cybersecurity as a career. The workshops aim to develop a more diverse workforce by including Trinity Washington University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C., as a partner.

Menon, one of the professors who received the grant, echoed Durant’s assertion that the industry will need to look beyond computer science majors for reinforcements in the cybersecurity field. To that end, he and collaborator Ngac will host workshops for college and high school students who haven’t previously considered working in tech industries.

“We’re looking for students who are not just engineers working in areas like hardcore ethical hacking, but those who can fill all kinds of roles,” Menon said. “We need people who can be creative and who can imagine threat scenarios, so we will provide workshops for non-tech students, high school students, liberal arts students. … We want them engaged. They don’t have to be in math or science; they just need to be creative.”

Changing with the times

A major catalyst in boosting George Mason’s cybersecurity programs was Amazon.com’s decision to locate its new HQ2 East Coast headquarters in nearby Arlington County. The state incentives that brought Amazon to Northern Virginia included $375 million to George Mason and Virginia Tech to increase the number of tech-related master’s degrees.

“That investment was a game changer,” says Marshall.

Later this year, George Mason will begin opening its new, $258 million, 345,000-square-foot Fuse at Mason Square building, which will house the university’s digital innovation institute, computer labs, high-tech classrooms and office space.

“We’re going to have companies there; we’re going to have government there,” Marshall says, adding that the university’s School of Computing will move into the building in 2025.

Creating new companies is a priority, Marshall says. His office spearheaded a cybersecurity business incubator and accelerator program that supports startup companies and entrepreneurs. The initiative, led by Gisele Stolz, director of entrepreneurship and innovation programs, earned CCI’s Impact Award and has helped launch about two dozen cybersecurity companies the past four years, Marshall says.

The George Mason-anchored Northern Virginia CCI node generated an estimated $101.6 million in economic impact in Northern Virginia for 2023, supporting an estimated 462 jobs and generating $3.3 million in state and local tax revenues, according to a report from the research institute RTI International.

George Mason was founded as a branch of the University of Virginia in 1949 and became an independent university in 1972. Because it is relatively young compared with other Virginia universities, Marshall says, it has grown and modernized alongside the region, which has become a government contracting and technology hub for the nation.

“We’ve grown according to the contemporary needs of our region,” Marshall says. “That’s really important in understanding how Mason is addressing the pipeline needs in computing, in technology and in cybersecurity. We’re not stuck in traditional ways of doing things, so we have an outsized impact on computer and information science, because that’s what in the past 50 years society has needed.”   

George Mason At a glance

Founded
Originally formed in 1949 as an extension of the University of Virginia, George Mason University became an independent institution in 1972.

Campuses
George Mason’s footprint covers 848 acres in Northern Virginia. In addition to its Fairfax campus, this includes the Mason Square campus in Arlington, the Science and Technology campus in Manassas, and the Smithsonian-Mason School of Conservation in Front Royal. 

The Fairfax Campus, with a residential student population of about 6,000, is home to seven colleges, including the first College of Public Health in Virginia, as well as the university’s 22 men’s and women’s Division I athletics teams. 

Located in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor, Mason Square is home to the Antonin Scalia Law School, the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, the Schar School of Policy and Government and courses in the College of Engineering and Computing, the Donald G. Costello College of Business and the College of Visual and Performing Arts. In 2024, George Mason will open its new Fuse at Mason Square building, a collaborative hub uniting scholars, students, researchers, policymakers and business developers. 

George Mason’s SciTech Campus serves more than 4,000 students in five innovative facilities specially designed for classrooms, laboratories, libraries, recreation, the arts and other uses. And the Mason Korea campus in Songdo, South Korea, celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2024.

Enrollment*
40,185

Student profile**

Female: 51%

Male: 49%

In-state: 78%

Minority: 50%

Academic programs
George Mason offers more than 200 degree programs, including 69 undergraduate degree programs, 92 master’s degree programs, 39 doctoral degree programs and a juris doctorate.

Faculty
1,716 full-time

Tuition, fees, housing and dining

In-state tuition and fees: $14,220 

Out-of-state tuition and fees: $38,688 

Room and board: $14,090 

*Includes 664 students at Mason Korea, fall 2023
**U.S. campuses only, fall 2023