Grove School experts participating in Google's $12 million cybersecurrity research program, from left: Rosario Gennaro, Nelly Fazio and Samah Saeed.
The City College of New York is a participant in a $12 million Google initiative to stimulate the cybersecurity ecosystem and establish New York City as the global leader in cybersecurity. CUNY, Columbia University, Cornell, and New York University are the other institutions involved in the Google Cyber NYC Institutional Research Program.
Three faculty from The City College’s Grove School of Engineering -- Rosario Gennaro, Nelly Fazio (both computer science) and Samah Saeed (electrical engineering) are among the beneficiaries of the $12 million grant that will go towards cutting-edge research. In addition to their research they will help expand educational opportunities for students seeking advanced degrees in cybersecurity.
The Google funding will support ~90 collaborative research projects by 2025 in areas where further research could encourage the development of more secure digital ecosystems and inspire innovation. The funding will also be used by the universities to help grow their cybersecurity degree programs, bolster the upcoming workforce and champion underrepresented groups in cybersecurity.
Speaking on this educational component, Gennaro, director of the Grove School’s Center for Algorithms and Interactive Scientific Software (CAISS), said:
“The Google grant is designed to train the new generation of cybersecurity professionals, at all levels from engineers to researchers. This CUNY-wide grant will be used to support cybersecurity education at all the campuses, and in particular it will help us generate a common platform across CUNY to share curricula, projects, etc. across all the colleges.
“Moreover, in cooperation with all the other New York City academic institutions that are part of the Google effort, we will build a city-wide ‘Research Experience for Undergraduates’ program, where undergraduates from all the NYC universities will be matched with mentors across all NYC campuses to work on research projects sponsored by Google.”
Gennaro and Fazio are engaged in joint research. “We are going to work on building new and more efficient Zero-Knowledge Proofs, which are tools used to protect privacy and integrity of computations performed over data which is distributed over networks,” said Gennaro. “The project spans various topics including new cryptographic schemes, resistance to quantum computing advances and application scenarios like verifying that large machine learning models have been trained correctly.”
Saeed’s research entails identifying new methods for hiding information/gates in quantum circuits.
“Insights from these analyses will inform the development of a lightweight security application to prevent illegal distribution of quantum circuits at low cost by leveraging information hiding,” said Saeed. “It will also explore how to co-design security and reliability features of the quantum architectures using advanced deep learning.”
One other goal of the Google support is to address diversity gaps in the cybersecurity industry by focusing on recruiting and developing workers from underrepresented groups.
“The Google Cyber NYC Institutional Research Program will further propel New York as a research leader in cybersecurity, alongside the work of preeminent city institutions like New York City Cyber Command,” said Phil Venables, Chief Information Security Office for Google Cloud. “At Google, we're committed to being bold and responsible stewards of emerging technology like AI, so we're working together with four of New York's leading institutions to make sure the city is prepared as the threat landscape continually shifts.”
ABOUT GOOGLE NEW YORK
Google first came to New York in 2000 and has been a dedicated partner to the city and state since. With over 12,000 employees in the state, Google knows New York is one of the most important talent pools in the world because of its unparalleled entrepreneurial and creative energy. Through Grow with Google programs offered on the NYC campus and online, local Google.org grant initiatives, continued building development and various public-private partnerships, Google intends to be a staple to New York’s economic growth, a vital member of the community and a leader of New York’s pandemic recovery.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 15,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. This year, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign, ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Jay Mwamba
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