Call for Interns
Are you interested in serving the cybersecurity education community? Do you desire to develop research skills? Consider applying for the National CyberWatch Center Research Internship program.
What is this about?
The Research and Assessments division of the National CyberWatch Center is seeking individuals interested in assisting with research projects to include, but not limited to:
- Managing relationships with research participants
- Managing project plans and schedules
- Collecting and analyzing data
- Preparing draft reports
Depending on the level of your participation you may also be listed as a co-author on related publications or credentials produced from the research.
What does NCC Research do?
The National CyberWatch Center Research efforts focus on promoting, sponsoring, and conducting research on cybersecurity education and workforce development. Our studies are designed to:
- Identify current evidence-based practices that raise capability maturity and improve the security posture of organizations
- Encourage the development of evidence-based cybersecurity education and workforce development strategies
- Document the results of sponsored research projects to inform cybersecurity education and practice effectiveness
- Act as a clearinghouse for non-National CyberWatch conducted and sponsored research
- Support the development of independent, objective, sustainable, and scalable models
What will I be working on?
You can express an interest in working on one of the ongoing research and development projects. As an intern, you will be assigned a Senior Researcher mentor who will work closely with you on each assigned project. The following projects are currently in need of interns:
- Competency-based Instruction Design Pilots: Developing and testing the effectiveness of methods for designing competency-based mastery learning curriculum.
- Cybersecurity Skills Development Workshops: Working with the nation's leading practitioners and educators to produce short-duration (1-3 day) workshops that provide instructional content which adds digital assets to the CyberWatch Curriculum Standards instructional libraries.
- Cybersecurity Skills Journal: Working with the nation's leading practitioners and researchers to promote, rigorously review, and publish seminal publications that advance human capabilities to effectively perform cybersecurity practice and instruction. The CSJ conducts Paper Development Workshops (PDWs) and Peer Reviewer Workshops in addition to co-hosting the Virtual Brown Bag Lunch series.
- Curriculum Standards Panel Program: Engaging leaders from industry, government, and academia in cataloging, designing, and validating competency-based mastery learning instructional materials, including assessments, conceptual instruction. procedural guides, case exercises, lab exercises, and challenge scenarios.
- Master Tutor Program: Developing the technology support, procedural guides, and assessment models needed to provide a nationwide network of subject matter experts who can advise, consult, and instruct learners who have been unable to pass through a learning threshold that is constraining their raising of capability maturity.
- Raise the BAR Mastery Badge Program: Designing, administering, and managing a national formative credentialing program to assist with assessing workforce and learner readiness, personal development planning, capability maturity benchmarking, and unbiased personnel recruitment, selection, and promotion that increases the workers possessing cybersecurity capability.
- Capability Maturity Benchmarking System: Designing, developing, administering, and managing a national comparative database of capability maturity for educators, students, and practitioners that can assist in capacity evaluation, planning, and development.
What type of person are we seeking?
- Motivated students who like to learn, design, build, document, and/or evaluate processes and practices.
- Proactive students who enjoy exploring and figuring out directions on their own and taking the initiative to define and expand planned tasks as needed to achieve the project vision and mission.
- Strong finishers and systematizers who constantly seek to find or improve the use of productivity tools to better manage projects and tasks.
- Students proficient in the fundamentals of cybersecurity, including having performed well in courses in Network Fundamentals, Linux Fundamentals, Windows Server Fundamentals, Scripting Fundamentals, and Information Security Fundamentals is not a requirement but is strongly recommended.
Can a graduate student apply?
Yes, but your advisor should be supportive of the idea. With the approval of your advisor and the NCC Research Project Lead, the project you work on could be designed as a graduate thesis or dissertation.
Why should I do this?
- Because you’ll be working on really innovative and exciting research
- Because you’ll gain valuable experience as a key contributor in the design or deployment of projects with a national scope and impact
- Because you’ll learn research methods and gain a hands-on research experience
- Because you’ll have a chance to interact and network with leaders of industry, government, and academia
Okay, I’m sold. What are the conditions?
- Internship Duration: Our research interns come from a wide variety of institutions worldwide with their own semester/quarter schedule. Consequently, start and end dates can be adjusted to meet your schedule. However, we only accept interns who can commit to at least 24 or more weeks with preference given to applications for an annual commitment.
- Preference will be given to students who are interested in extending the internship into the following year. Extension is not a requirement, however. At the end of the initial term, we'll discuss the possibility of extending the internship. The decision will depend on your progress, your fit with the research team, and your level of interest and commitment, among other things.
- Working hours are flexible but you should plan to spend 5-10 hours per week.
- This is an unpaid internship. Selected interns will be given first priority for inclusion in sponsored research projects that offer compensation to research team members.
How can I apply?
Please apply by clicking the “Register” button on this web page. Your application should include the following:
- Select the project(s) you want to work on from the list provided.
- Attach a Qualifications Statement about why it interests you and what you plan to contribute. If you selected more than one project, provide a statement for each. Each qualification statement should be approximately one-page in length.
- Link your resume, CV, or public LinkedIn page that includes your technical skillset and any research experience.