Dr. Waleed Farag is a professor of computer science and director of the Institute for Cybersecurity at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where he has led federally funded cybersecurity research, education, scholarship, and workforce development initiatives.
Summary of the episode
Dr. Waleed Farag explains the program’s long-standing National Center of Academic Excellence designation, its interdisciplinary approach combining cybersecurity and criminal justice, and the hands-on opportunities available through faculty-led research, student employment, clubs, competitions, and industry-focused projects.
He also highlights scholarship-for-service opportunities, including Department of Defense support, as well as research in Internet of Things security and zero trust, language and cultural training initiatives, and statewide partnerships designed to strengthen cybersecurity education and workforce pipelines. He closes by emphasizing that success in cybersecurity requires curiosity, continuous self-learning, and the ability to keep pace with a rapidly changing field.
Listen to the episode
Read a full transcript of the episode
Steven Bowcut:
Welcome to the Cybersecurity Guide Podcast, where we explore cybersecurity education and career opportunities with educators, researchers, and industry leaders from across the country. I’m your host, Steven Bowcut.
Today, we’re taking a closer look at the cybersecurity program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and several innovative initiatives designed to prepare students for careers in cybersecurity research and public service. My guest today is Dr. Waleed Farag.
Dr. Farag is a professor of computer science at Indiana University of Pennsylvania and director of the university’s Institute for Cybersecurity. He joined IUP in 2002 after earning his PhD in computer science from Old Dominion University. He also holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Zagazig University in Egypt.
During his career at IUP, Dr. Farag has led dozens of federally funded projects and secured more than $15 million in funding to support cybersecurity education, research, scholarship, and workforce development.
His work has included research into Internet of Things security and automated risk mitigation in zero trust environments, as well as statewide initiatives involving community colleges, universities, government agencies, and industry partners.
Dr. Farag has also helped secure dozens of Department of Defense scholarships for IUP cybersecurity students. In recognition of his accomplishments in teaching research and service, he was selected as IUP’s distinguished university professor for the 2026-27 academic year. With that, Dr. Farag, welcome to the Cybersecurity Guide Podcast.
Waleed Farag:
Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Bowcut, for the nice introduction, and it’s my pleasure to join you.
Steven Bowcut:
Thank you. We genuinely appreciate your time. I know our audience will benefit from this, and hopefully we can help some students or early to mid-career professionals make appropriate cybersecurity education decisions. So that’s always our goal.
What we’d like to do, we normally do on the show is we like to start with a little bit more of a background. So we’d like for you, if you would, to tell us a little bit about your academic and professional journey. How did you get interested in cybersecurity and what led you to where you’re at today?
Waleed Farag:
Sure. So this is a long story. I grew up in Egypt, and when I was a child, I always was really curious about how electronic and electrical devices work. So this led me actually to go and enter the engineering school and specialize in electrical engineering.
During the last two years of my actually college time, which is typically five years in the program over there in Egypt, it was really the rapid spread IBM compatible PCs. And I got actually my first PC when I was a senior last year of high school when I was a senior in high school.
So I was really very fascinated with computers and how they work and the very powerful impact they can just actually contribute to the society in general. So I continued my master in a computer related area. And in fact, my thesis design a system, a very novel system to select an optimal neural network architecture for any problem using optimization techniques.
This was actually the very mid ’80s and early ’90s, just neural network was a big thing and AI was a big thing at the time and then it dipped and then back again. This happens. So I was involved in that field really for a long time, and I like that area. This convinced me to continue my study in computer science.
So I joined ODU, Oldman University in Virginia for my PhD, and I finished my PhD graduating with a 4.0 GPA. By the way, in my college also, I was a valedictorian of my class, so continued that to my PhD and then graduating with a perfect GPA. My dissertation was also content based level of multimedia data, a very hot topic at that point of time. So after graduating with my PhD, I joined IUP, Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 2002, as you said. And at that time we were just starting our cybersecurity program.
So with my passion to, again, a curiosity, figuring out challenging concept and trying to improve and protecting computing system. This was a natural actually field for me to join. I did very little in my PhD in cybersecurity at that time, but it was really a beginning. So I started teaching myself and learning a lot and contributing to my students and classes.
Steven Bowcut:
Excellent. Thank you for sharing that. That is fascinating. So let’s focus a little bit on IUP. So IUP has a long history of cybersecurity education and in fact was among one of the first universities to participate in the Federal Centers for Academic Excellence program.
So talk to us about that a little bit. And I guess primarily what we’re looking for is to help students and families that are comparing cybersecurity programs. What does this designation signify and how has IUP’s long involvement in the CAE community helped shape the program that you offer today?
Waleed Farag:
So this is a very interesting, again, question too. So as you can see, nowadays when we joined this program, it was probably handful of just like a dozen or a couple of thousand programs nationwide designated as such. But let’s focus first on the definition for anyone who’s not familiar.
So the designation as a national center of academic excellence in cyber defense actually signifies that a school like IUP offers cybersecurity program and curriculum that meets the regular actually standards established by the National Security Agency. So this just translate into you all given that prestigious designation for five years, you have to renew your designation.
In fact, we are currently in the process of renewing our designation in the fifth or sixth cycle, because we started a long time ago. But with 24 years or more of experience as a National Center for Academic Excellence, you can imagine that IUP has developed expertise in cybersecurity, faculty expertise, and again, expertise with the program itself.
And we offer our students unique opportunities and resources that is not easily found elsewhere. So I encourage anyone who would like to compare that to really go to our website and explore the AMBEL resources and opportunities from scholarship. So like research opportunities and other involvement with schools across the nation and further agency that we offer our students.
Steven Bowcut:
Excellent. Thank you. All right. So one of the things that I found especially interesting as IUP’s undergraduate program is that it approaches cybersecurity from both a technical and a criminal justice perspective.
So talk to us about that. Why is that interdisciplinary combination important and how does it help students understand cybercrime, digital evidence, law, and human dimensions of cybersecurity?
Waleed Farag:
That’s another interesting question and observation too. Thanks for observing that. This is one of the unique feature of our program in fact. And from its inception, we design it to emphasize the technical aspect of cybersecurity, but also the intersection with criminal justice.
And this goal was achieved by actually requiring our students, so we still have the requirement for the bachelor in science, which is what we offer, bachelor in science-cybersecurity, computer science cybersecurity.
We also require them to complete a minor in criminal justice with specific classes designed for students while taking cybersecurity program. So we believe that this multidisciplinary approach exposes students to important and evolving fields and gives them a unique perspective, educational perspective that really distinguish them from other graduating students with cybersecurity or computer science/cybersecurity programs.
And this enhances career opportunities, exposing them, as you said, to digital forensics and things that intersect with computer science and criminology, which is very common in real life. We go to many conferences and you also went to some of them in which we always invite people from FBI labs and other federal agency who focus on, again, digital forensics and how this helps them solve some problems. So I think this is an interesting addition that we are offering to our students and something to add definitely to their CVs.
Steven Bowcut:
Yeah, sounds interesting to me. So a large part of our audience are students and their families that are listening to this and they’re trying to decide, trying to figure out in their own minds what it would be like to go to IUP. So help us understand that.
So what does a typical classroom and laboratory experience look like for an undergraduate cybersecurity student? Do they work closely with the faculty members and what other interesting things would they be involved in?
Waleed Farag:
Sure. And just for the big picture, as you noted probably, IUP is an alter school, so we are probably the only research university in the public system of Pennsylvania state system higher education. We call it like SHE, state system higher education in Pennsylvania.
So although we really are designated as an out to school with a research mission, we bride ourself of being a student centered. We place very high emphasis on teaching excellence and providing all student with unique opportunities and engaging educational expertise while they are at IUP. So asking specifically about class size and computer science and cybersecurity, we’re talking about a class size of 25 to 30 students. And this is our goal.
So sometimes even we have less student upper level classes. So this provide, as you can see, significant opportunities for students and faculty interaction, one-on-one interaction during class sessions, labs, office hours, and other events.
I can personally talk about myself. I employed schools of students, providing them with essential opportunities and also be it employment as a student researchers and student workers in many of my funded projects and giving them that exposures and they can just learn teamwork and how to just probably work in such a project as a sophomore or a junior.
This definitely gives them a plus compared to other students who don’t get engaged with such activity. So definitely you have a lot of just opportunity for the student to really… We know our students by name and we value our connection with our student and they have access to all faculty at all times.
Steven Bowcut:
I like that. Okay. So another important concern for students and their families is the cost of education, and that leads us to think about scholarships. And I think you have some interesting and valuable things that you do there regarding that.
So talk to us about the scholarships that are available, who’s eligible to apply, and what should students understand about the government service commitment that accompanies one or more of these scholarships that you offer?
Waleed Farag:
Okay, so let me first add this, the first point you asked about cost of education. As a public institution, our tuition is really very reasonable. In fact, over the past probably eight years, we never increased our tuition. As this is not just IUP, it’s something decided by the board of governor at Pennsylvania 11 or a public school. So our tuition are not dictated by us.
Actually, it’s the Pennsylvania Commonwealth decide that, and they decided to freeze tuition for eight or seven consecutive years, which is something which is, I don’t think, unprecedented. So this is one thing. Talking about alternatives we offer for our cybersecurity student in addition to that really reasonable tuition and fees actually model we have here at IUP is something like Cyber Service Academy, which I think you referred to. This is a program which is basically a scholarship for service program.
It’s an outstanding program to give students up to five years of free education. So the CSA is basically funded by the Department of Defense, so now the DAO, and basically they offer student a very generous package while talking about free tuition, free fees, a free laptop, free box, and a $29,000 annual stipend.
Steven Bowcut:
Wow. That’s awesome.
Waleed Farag:
Yes, this is awesome. When I tell some of my faculty I was not aware of that by partner, they said, “I will take it.” Yeah, exactly.
Steven Bowcut:
I was like, “Well, how do I get in on that?”.
Waleed Farag:
Well, we are really talking about 50K package. And again, this is with IUP, modest tuition model. Some other school of course was dismissed in this program, which they have much larger tuition bill than us. But back to the point here, this is really outstanding opportunity and it gives typically for undergraduate students, they apply during their sophomore year, and if they receive the scholarship, they get free education for junior and senior year.
If they decide to go to grad schools, I place a lot of my students in this program actually at major research institution like CMU, like Penn State. We don’t have a PHD program here at IUP, but they can continue the graduate program at other major research institution across the nation, and they can have up to five years. And the whole idea, it’s a scholarship for service, as I said. So if they get the scholarship for one year, they have to work for an agency and the government for the same amount of time.
If they get it for one and a half years, they work for one and a half years. And after that, they get a security clearance and they become very, very, very competitive in the job market. And definitely they can decide to continue with the agency and have many student do that, or they can decide to do whatever was life after this, as I tell my student.
And as you can see, over the past few years, we secured 76 of this scholarship. Sometime I tell my students, especially in the past few years, we get roughly between 6 to 16% of the entire scholarship in the nation comes to IUB student, new student. So this was really very, very just a great achievement while getting much, much harder competition now with many schools getting into the applicant board. But this is an opportunity still. I have full scholarship coming to my students this academic year, which is great.
Steven Bowcut:
Yeah, that is so awesome. Thank you for sharing that. So you mentioned research a little bit, so let’s dig a little deeper there. So in addition to your work in the classroom, you’ve led significant research projects at IUP, as I understand it. So you’ve been a principal investigator for major projects involving IOT, anomaly detection, and autonomous risk mitigation and zero trust architectures. I think I talked about that at the top of the show.
So what problems have those projects sought to solve, that research? So what problems were you trying to solve and what opportunities do undergraduate and graduate students have to contribute to that research? Sure.
Waleed Farag:
So you mentioned specifically a couple of research project I have been recently involved with as a PI and the main faculty member in charge of this. The first one we call it IOT, anomaly detection, and its main goal is to design a system to detect anomalies and internet of things, devices, and to improve the security of network environments in general. So ZapLogic has a simulation component in which we designed everything in software. First, we moved to design a physical hardware test bit.
So all the solutions and the models that we developed in the simulation phase, we really implemented these in a test bid. We tested that and validated this in a test bid, and this helped us actually generating data sets for researchers from across the world to use. So it was an interesting and innovative project. The other one we call it ARMZTA, which is Autonomous Risk Medication in Zero Trust Architecture.
And this project intends also to improve the security of systems, especially those working in the concept of Zero Trust by detecting and mitigating actually cyber risks to enhance the security of the system in general. This project we used collaborative machine learning actually approach to develop just solutions to try to detect and then mitigate this one that probably filling the security actually loop here and systems that rely on as a concept of never trust, always authenticate.
So the concept of zero trust here. And the project was mainly run by students under the supervision of the actual faculty. So in this couple of project alone, I believe I offered the opportunity to work as a social student research and social assistant to more than 25 students at the graduate levels. So we have mostly undergraduate students body, but we have some graduate students from related disciplines who work with us.
And this gives definitely these students a significant edge, as I mentioned before. This is something to add to their CV. Working research project as an undergrad is a very, very important skills and variable hands-on experience that they gain during participation.
Steven Bowcut:
For sure. Yeah, that is good.
Waleed Farag:
And they get bid too.
Steven Bowcut:
Okay. All right. So another thing that I found very interesting about IUP, so as we all know, cybersecurity professionals and indeed all professionals are increasingly working in an international environment, and you’ve done some interesting things along those lines.
So as I understand it, you’ve received a nearly a million dollar grant to establish an immersive Chinese language program. Talk to us about that and why Chinese and what would be the advantage to a student learning Chinese or any other foreign language?
Waleed Farag:
Sure. So this initiative really was inspired by my ongoing efforts to develop innovative project and collaborate with colleagues from diverse background. IUP, you mentioned in a major project almost like 9.98, just 0.98, sorry, almost a million dollar.
And we were the only university in the nation that was awarded this program. I give also just definitely, I acknowledged the thinking also of our funding agency, which is the Center of Academic Excellence, who thought about just also the idea of including something unique like this, bringing cybersecurity students from across the nation to teach them a very critical language like Chinese. And we went ahead and implemented that and implemented really successfully. We brought into two different cohorts.
We brought 15 students here for that 10-week program during summer, almost the entire summer, 15 students from across the nation for major research and undergraduate institution here. We brought them physically to IUP in Western PA to teach them about Chinese language, but also the culture. So we integrated a lot of actually immersive activities because the language is not just the linguistic component, it’s also the culture.
It’s very important. So we tried our best to have multiple cultural events that told them about the culture. And we recruited very qualified actually instructor from across the nation, almost 10 instructors who came and told these students that not only that, I took these 15 students in a two-day trip to the National Security Agency to expose them to the agency need in this particular area and probably make some connections for future employment and things like that.
We also implemented the second cohort in summer of 2025, which was 10 students online due to the limitation of funding for the second cycle. But I think this was a unique program and definitely give these 25 students an edge, they are cybersecurity students, so they have the technical side, but also now they have a very, very unique skill, which is needed skills. I really didn’t know that it’s very needed until I went to the NSA on that trip, needed skills to just augment the technical side.
Steven Bowcut:
That is so interesting. That was great foresight. So most of us understand that a big part of the learning experience for students happens outside of the traditional classroom. So let’s talk about that, what opportunities IUP offers along those lines. I will assume, but I’ll let you explain, there may be clubs, hackathons, competitions, that kind of thing. What can students look forward to in that regard?
Waleed Farag:
Sure. And then you mentioned club specifically, so I’ll start with this because I think it’s very effective and typically something that attracts the student. So I have served as a faculty advisor of the IUP Cybersecurity Club since 2012, so almost 14 years now. And under my leadership, the club has participated in many activities and also organized several activity including hackathons, like cyber competitions.
And one of the owners, they earn it is really finished first place in one of these regional competition in the entire Northeast regions for a program called CE Cyber Game, which is also sponsored by the National Security Agency. So definitely, as you said, participation in extracurricular activities and particularly club hackathons, it allows student to apply the knowledge from the classrooms into a real world situations.
And this is the hands-on and technical skills. Imagine they are working under in a teamwork and they learn how to communicate effectively and leverage individual strengths in a team because this is real world.
This helps them definitely develop this teamwork and leadership skills that’s very valued by employers. And we always like, what’s that? Some people like to call it soft skills. I really don’t like the term. I call it life skills because it’s essential for students really to survive and be successful in the workplace. So I think we have been consistent in students to participate in these activities and show them some of the success from previous classes.
So they encourage them, “Yeah, we won first place. Why not?” So this year they won third place, I think, which is good too. The whole idea is participation. We really don’t worry much about first place or second place. I think students like of course to win, but also the experience they go through. And many of these hackathons, they don’t even require any background at the beginning. So I have a student participating on them when they are freshman year.
They didn’t get actually a single cybersecurity course, still taking the general education, but it just is a motivation. It’s just against them with other students who won’t experience it and they just feel the challenge and they learn, like I suppose.
Steven Bowcut:
Sure. Wow. Very good. That’s interesting. All right, we’re getting close to being out of time, but I got a couple more questions that I want to send your way.
Now, we know that when students are considering their education, they’re also looking at what am I going to do when I’m done with my education? So workforce development is something that students are always highly interested in when they’re choosing a career.
So as I understand it, you’ve led to important workforce development collaborations. There was a DOD funded PC4A community college consortium and the NIST funded Pennsylvania Cyber Workforce Alliance. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about those and particularly what students can anticipate getting out of these programs.
Waleed Farag:
Sure. And thank you very much for highlighting this two unique alternative is actually an initiative. So PC4A, as we speak, we just actually received an extension for that project for the fifth year. So this show some of the impactful work that we are doing and it’s getting recognized by the funding agency to bring the total fund in this particular project to $6.5 million. It’s a very, very significant project. In fact, it’s the largest project, funded project in IUP history.
Steven Bowcut:
Oh.
Waleed Farag:
Since we are 151 years old school and institution, and this is the largest actually project funded by the National Defense Education Program with an acceptance rate of 10%. So it was a very, very competitive process, but we received that fund and we continue to actually receive support from the funding agency.
And the main objective is to really improve cybersecurity program across the Commonwealth with a focus on community college. So BCWE is another related project that’s funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST, and it takes more than a dozen employers and K-12 Community college stakeholders together to basically improve also STEM program with a focus on increasing the transfer to four year institution, but also increasing the number of students who are certified in cybersecurity industry recognized certification.
So I’ll give you very specific because of the limited time, some figures here. In BC4A specifically, as a result of our effort in the three years, we managed to increase the number of students certified in things like complete security plus, like network plus, A+, Cisco, CCNA, and other certifications by 580%.
This was a significant actual achievement that globally convinced our funding agency that we are really generating impactful just results here. Other performance metrics include increase like DAO employment, transfer to four year institutions, female student participation, military connected student participation by 100%, 7, 15, 116 respectively.
So the project really have just exceptional success across multiple performance metrics here and contributing to students really knowing about opportunities. They finished two years in community college and they just think that’s it.
No, we provide them with opportunity to transfer to four year institution and get the bachelor more, continue to graduate student studies if they decide to do that. So I think this is workforce development is very important. And as all of us know, this is significant issues, especially in the cybersecurity field. So we are hoping that this effort help a little bit close this gap in qualified cybersecurity professionals.
Steven Bowcut:
Okay, very good. So let’s end with an open-ended question here, Dr. Farag. Is there anything that we haven’t discussed that you can think of that prospective cybersecurity students should know about studying cybersecurity at Indiana University of Pennsylvania?
Waleed Farag:
I think you covered a lot of –
Steven Bowcut:
Okay. Well, I just want to make sure that you’ve had an opportunity to talk about anything that you know is important that I may know.
Waleed Farag:
I would say a general advice to be successful in the field, definitely you need to be curious and you need to understand this is a very, very fast changing and fast evolving field that people who will be successful in this area are people who are just ready to teach themself to explore things outside of the classroom and to really keep updating themselves.
Because even once you graduate, things comes in you every time. It’s really very, very rapidly changing. So you have to develop the skills of teaching yourself or finding resources which will help you stay updated and stay competitive too in a very challenging job market.
Yes, we always talk about the gap in cybersecurity, just job market, but I tell my student, okay, this is for qualified people. You need to understand that.
Steven Bowcut:
That’s true.
Waleed Farag:
Yeah, this is for qualified people. And there’s a major issue with hiring actually just the entry level. We are doing some of the research actually in this project trying to alleviate that issue because with AI, there are significant actually reduction in the number of entry level in cybersecurity and other fields, other technical fields.
Steven Bowcut:
That’s true. That’s really a good point because your skillset needs to be a little sharper probably to find the jobs that are available. And we do need lots of good qualified people, but let’s focus on the word qualified, particularly now with what AI is, how that’s changing things.
Waleed Farag:
100%.
Steven Bowcut:
All right. So Dr. Waleed Farag, professor of computer science and director of the Institute of Cybersecurity at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, thank you for joining us today and for sharing your insights into IUP cybersecurity programs, research opportunities, scholarships, and all the things we’ve talked about. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this. I’m sure that our audience is going to enjoy it as well, so thank you.
Waleed Farag:
Thank you very much. My pleasure and I hope this is beneficial too for our future students.
Steven Bowcut:
I am confident that it will be, and thanks to our listeners for joining us for another episode of the Cybersecurity Guide Podcast. If you’re considering a degree or career in cybersecurity, visit cybersecurityguide.org. There you’ll find detailed information about cybersecurity degree programs, certifications, scholarships, career paths, and employment opportunities.
Be sure to follow the Cybersecurity Guide podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss future conversations with the educators and professionals shaping the next generation of cybersecurity workforce. I’m Steven Bowcut. Thank you for listening.