Thinking about a master’s or doctoral degree in technology? Pace University’s Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems offers a focused program of study in areas like computer science, information systems, software development, telecommunications and networks, enterprise analytics, and more.
We have a series of graduate information sessions coming up in August – register to learn about our master’s and doctoral programs!
Whether you’ve recently obtained your undergraduate degree or already have a master’s and are looking to take your education and expertise to the next level, the Seidenberg School can provide you with a rigorous program of courses, practical experience, research and the chance to present your work that will result in a meaningful degree – opening up a world of potential job opportunities, high salaries, and rewarding work.
Seidenberg graduates with a master’s degree go on to earn $83,050 on average within a year of graduation with companies like Google, Microsoft, Mastercard, JP Morgan Chase, Verizon, and more.
Our two doctoral degrees offer a robust program of coursework and dissertation research. The Doctor of Professional Studies (DPS) for Computing and IT professionals provides students the opportunity to pursue a doctorate part time while working full time in a program that extends their careers by an average of 13 years. The PhD in Computer Science cultivates advanced computing research scholars and professionals who will be competent in both industry and academia.
We are holding two events; one on each of Pace University’s campuses. Please register for your selected date to learn more about what a degree from Pace University can do for you.
On Friday, July 7th, 2017, the 5th annual STEM Collaboratory NYC’s STEM Camp kicked off as a cohort of bright and ambitious high school students walked through the Seidenberg School’s doors.
The 26 students, who were carefully selected from 109 applications, will spend the next two weeks with us for an intensive summer experience that will include delving into programming with python, understanding data science, using design thinking approaches for projects, and having massive amounts of fun!
On Day 1, the day began with a brief intro to camp and the Seidenberg School. Program manager Olga Bogomolova got everyone acquainted with an opening presentation and the infamous name game, where everybody cements one another’s names in their heads through a creative repetition game. It works!
Dr. Lauren Birney welcomes our STEM Campers for 2017!
Dr. Lauren Birney of Pace University’s School of Education (a partner in STEM Camp!) greeted the students. “You are the cream that rises to the top,” she told them, adding that they should be proud they were selected for the program. Dr. Birney added that the program would be challenging, however “every challenge we get is another opportunity to get further in our careers.”
Students spent the afternoon getting an introduction to python programming language with Dr. Christelle Scharff, chair of the computer science department.
STEM camp is organized and managed by Olga Bogomolova and offers Seidenberg and fellow Pace students the opportunity to mentor campers individually and in groups. The following two weeks will include more coding, project-based learning, a trip to the Billion Oyster Project on Governor’s Island to learn data analytics, museum visits, and more. Stay tuned to hear all about it and check out Seidenberg social media for pics!
Pace University, through the Seidenberg School of Computer Science and Information Systems, became one of the country’s few Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education (CAE-CDE) with a new designation from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the National Security Agency (NSA).
The designation, which was earned following a rigorous examination of our School’s academics and research, replaces our previous title of Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education.
Dean Jonathan Hill and Dr Li-Chiou Chen, chair of the information technology department, traveled to the 9th Annual National Cyber Summit in Huntsville, Alabama, to accept the designation. The conference is an annual gathering of industry, government, and academic institutions in the area of cybersecurity education.
Dr Hill and Dr Chen received the designation from Dr Leonard T. Reinsfelder, Commandant of the National Cryptologic School at the National Security Agency, and Mr Daniel Stein, the Acting Branch Cybersecurity Education and Awareness in the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at the Department of Homeland Security.
Dr Chen directs the Seidenberg Cybersecurity Education and Research Lab alongside Assistant Dean for Academic Innovation Andreea Cotoranu. The lab aims to address the acute shortage of cybersecurity and information assurance professionals in industry by focusing on education, research, and partnerships with academic, industry, and government.
Throughout the entire month of April 2017, the Pace University Cyber Team competed in the National Cyber League’s first ever spring season competition. The National Cyber League (NCL) started in May 2011 as a platform to “provide an ongoing virtual training ground for participants to develop, practice, and validate their cybersecurity knowledge and skills using next-generation high-fidelity simulation environments.”
The Pace Cyber Team definitely validated their knowledge! In this capture-the-flag style offensive and defensive security competition, each participant had to show proficiency and excellence in all nine of the following categories:
Cryptography
Enumeration and Exploitation
Log Analysis
Network Traffic Analysis
Open Source Intelligence
Password Cracking
Scanning
Web Application Exploitation
Wireless Access Exploitation
Pace Cyber Team: progress as they battled in the final hours of the post-season team competition
Most team members placed individually in either the silver or the coveted gold brackets of the competition going up against the best of the best nationwide. Of the over 2000 competitors only the top 15% will compete in the gold bracket, while the following 35% will make it to silver. This season, 1,891 students/players and 269 faculty/ coaches from 291 two- and four-year schools in 43 U.S. states registered to play in the Preseason/Regular Season.
The Pace Cyber Team also went on to compete in the Silver Bracket of the post-season team competition where they ranked 11th overall in their bracket and placed 27th nationally out of 152 teams from over 108 college/universities in 35 states. The team scored 2,635 points and captured 121 of the challenge flags. For comparison purposes, the national average for this competition was only 1,655 points and just 83 flags.
Pace Cyber Team: 2017 NCL Post Season Extravaganza in Goldstein 321
Even more remarkable, the Pace Cyber Team ranked 1st in their bracket and 4th overall in Wireless Access Exploitation. In addition, the team placed 6th in the silver bracket and 14th overall in Network Traffic Analysis, and 8th in their bracket and 16th overall in Cryptography. Moreover, the team ranked among the top 25 teams in the silver bracket for every challenge category.
Team Captain Kaitlyn Bestenheider said: “I couldn’t have asked for a better team to compete with. We were all strong competitors and had a wide variety of skills. Everyone communicated fantastically, which made it easy for me to share information and delegate tasks to the person whose skills were best suited to the challenge at hand. Our team’s real strength was in its variety of experience and expertise levels. I look forwarded to training and competing again next semester.”
The team competing in the 2017 NCL post-season included:
Kaitlyn Bestenheider (MS/CS ’18), Adriana Aluia (BS/IT ’17), Cesar Castro (BS/IT ’18), Michael Gabriel (BS/IT ’19), Andrew Ku (BS/IS ’20), Norissa Lamaute (MS/CS’17), Benjamin Longobardi (BS/CS’19), and Gabriel Rivera (BS/IT’17).
Congratulations to all for a great performance this season!
The Pace Cyber Team would like to welcome anyone with an interest in cybersecurity to train and compete with us in the 2017 fall season. Contact Andreea Cotoranu, Assistant Dean for Academic Innovation (acotoranu@pace.edu) with questions.
Some of the Pace Cyber Team (January 2017) – back row L to R: Adriana Aluia, Michael Tantalos, Benjamin Longobardi, Andrew Ku, Gabriel Rivera, Mark Rolon, John Guckian; front row: Norissa Lamaute
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Want to read more? Check out Kaitlyn Bestenheider’s blog, Kait Tech, for further coverage of the event.
Thanks so much to team captain Kaitlyn for writing this student blog post!
PhD student Sandra Kopecky will be presenting her paper “Cyber Security Paradox from a User’s View Point” at Computing Conference in London this summer.
The conference, sponsored by IEEE, will see Sandra presenting her work to an international audience of peers. The publication of the paper will fulfil one of the dissertation requirements and put Sandra one step closer to earning her Doctor of Philosophy in Computer Science.
“I was ecstatic to receive acceptance notice,” Sandra said. “This is an SAI-IEEE conference, and I’m going to be presenting my paper along with others in a session at this conference. Wow!! I haven’t done that before.”
Given that Sandra was the sole author of the paper, having it accepted for publication and presentation at the conference is a big deal.
“I’ve been on various panels discussing cyber security, women in the engineering/computer field, my view point as a college student – at various levels, and my background. But never to present my work,” Sandra said.
So why did Sandra choose a unique topic like cybersecurity from a user’s point of view?
“There is much written and researched, however the point of view is almost always from a company’s point of view and the user just has to accept it, no questions asked,” Sandra explained. “Cybersecurity affects everyone in every field across the board. I decided to look at this from a different point of view: that of the user. This paper is the beginnings of that broader topic.”
Sounds like a great paper – the idea of ‘user first’ is no stranger to user experience and human-computer interaction, and it’s certainly interesting to hear about one of our students considering the user’s viewpoint when it comes to cybersecurity, too. Enjoy the conference, Sandra, and we can’t wait to hear about it when you get back!
Another year, another incredible performance at the annual Pace Pitch Contest from Seidenberg students. We couldn’t be more proud of Rachel González, Andrew Ku, and Rohana Sosa for taking the top two spots in the contest.
The competition, now in its thirteenth year, challenges students to pitch their ideas with constraints based on the famous Elevator Pitch, the technique of giving a concise and compelling pitch in a very short period of time.
Finalists in the competition had three minutes to give their pitches, which they did on Thursday, April 20, 2017, in the Bianco Room at Pace University. During their presentations, they were judged on their ability to provide: a description of their idea; a market analysis; the specs of their product or service; identification of potential competitors; a marketing strategy; how they aim to produce and deliver their product or service; an assessment of their management; a finances overview; and an investment proposal.
Plenty of Seidenberg students and teams made it to the final round – here are the teams including some of our amazing entrepreneurs!
George Samuels and Arton Mirakaj presenting Atmosphere.
First place winners Rachel Gonzáles and Danielle Ran pitching Minute Mantra.
Minute Mantra is a health and wellness app that enables mindfulness and clarity, and was developed by Rachel González (BS in Information Systems) alongside Danielle Ran (BBA in Marketing with minor in Psychology).
Thanh Do, Phuc Pham, and Syman Li present charity app TouchDonation.
TouchDonation makes giving to charity simple and was created by Phuc Pham (BS in Information Technology with a minor in Quantitative Business Analysis), Syman Li (BBA in Hospitality) and Thanh Do (BBA in Finance).
Second place winners Andrew Ku and Rohana Sosa with their idea VAICAM Pi.
Seidenberg students Andrew Ku (BS in Information Systems) and Rohana Sosa (BS in Computer Science with minor in Computing Information Technology) created VAICAM Pi. VAICAM Pi is bundled as an Android mobile app, a Google Cardboard virtual reality (VR) headset, and a Raspberry Pi 3, equipped with a 360 camera and artificial intelligence to function as an older person’s own artificially intelligent security camera.
Ricky Harris, Mackenzie Dolishny, and Daniel Citardi pitching VR Discover, an app aimed to improve the lives of aging populations.
Finally, VR Discover – an app built for both Android and iOS, utilizes virtual reality to stimulate cognitive function, provide entertainment, and relieve restlessness stemming from sundowning for patients with Alzheimer’s and dementia – was built by computer science students Ricky Harris, Daniel Citardi, and Mackenzie Dolishny. This innovative app also made an appearance at the #WestchesterSmart Mobile App Development bowl, where the team won a prize.
When it was time for the judges to make their decisions, students from Seidenberg snatched up first and second place!
Rachel González and Lubin student Danielle Ran took first place, bagging $1,000 to use toward developing their mindfulness app, Minute Mantra.
Andrew Ku and Rohana Sosa won the second prize of $500 for their artificial intelligence security app, VAICAM Pi.
Rohana and Andrew receive their award with the contest judges
Speaking about her experience, Rohana Sosa remarked that she and Andrew “both had a great experience and a lot of fun being participants in the Pitch Contest. This gave us the opportunity to showcase our talents and apply our programming skills to a business setting. Having this experience is a stepping stone to further our learning process and achieve our educational goals. The contest provided an enriching and stimulating experience to test our ideas and see how impactful the our mobile app concept is.”
There were certainly a wealth of impactful apps and ideas presented at the contest. You can see all of the finalists at the Entrepreneurship Lab website.
