Outreach Activities
2026
2026 iCTF: Battle of the Agents!
The International Capture The Flag (“iCTF”) is a distributed, wide-area security exercise that aims to test the security skills of the participants. The iCTF is one of the world’s largest and longest-running educational hacking competitions, with the goal of educating students about security-related topics in a live setting. NSU supported 8 high teams and 3 undergraduate teams in the iCTF Battle of the Agents. Funding for the live virtual event was provided by the NSF AI Institute for Agent-based Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operation (ACTION). The challenge was held from March 9 to March 13, 2026.
2025
Tracer FIRE September 5 - September 7 2025
The Tracer Fire Forensics Capture the Flag training event, sponsored by Sandia National Laboratories and supported by the ACTION grant, was held in person at the NSU Cybersecurity Complex. The goal of the Tracer FIRE event was to teach students to investigate multiple advanced persistent threat (APT) adversaries in a simulated incident response scenario. Learn cyber forensic techniques to discover:
- Who’s the adversary?
- How’d they get in?
- What did they want; did they succeed?
- How to prevent recurring incidents?
- Tracerfire Flyer
Two Capture the Flag Training Camps July 21 - July 25
The training camps were held at the Cybersecurity Complex at Norfolk State University and funded by the NSF AI Institute for Agent-based Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operation (ACTION). The Day Camp for High School Teachers and students was held from 9 am to 4 pm, and the Night Camp for graduate and undergraduate students was held from 6 pm to 9 pm.
High School Flyer
Day Camp Participants: 7 High School Teachers and 25 High School students from area high schools (Chesapeake, Hampton, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Smithfield, and Suffolk) participated in the in-person training.
Graduate and Undergrad Flyer
Night Camp Participants: 22 Graduate and Undergraduate students, 5 of whom were U.S. military Veterans. Participants were awarded a $500 stipend upon the successful completion of the 5-day camp.
2024
NSU Coordinated a visit to the Cybersecurity Center for students and teachers from the Technology Academy at Landstown High School in Virginia Beach. The students spent the day at NSU, engaging in hands-on cybersecurity activities.
2023
Berkley Community Center Robotic Events Ages 5-12
NSU provided a campus visit for 18 campers aged 5-12 from the Berkeley Community Center. On Day 1 of the visit, the campers enjoyed hands-on training and practice with Sphero robots. On Day 2 of the training, NSU personnel traveled to the Berkeley Community Center with the iPads and Sphero Robots. Lunch was provided on both days in partnership with NAVSEA, the Digital Transformation Solutions Center of Excellence, and Noblis MSD, with representatives attending both days of the camp.
2021
DoD Summer Apprenticeship/Internship Program
The Computer Science Department has been approved to hold an eight-week Summer Apprenticeship/Internship Cybersecurity program for a number of selected high school and undergraduate students who will be selected to participate across the US. This eight-week long summer training will be coordinated by Dr. Samuel BO Olatunbosun of the Computer Science Department and is being sponsored by the Department of the Army, a Division of the Department of Defense (DoD). The camp will hold starting early June and will end in late July 2021.
CCI Cyber Camp
Norfolk State will facilitate the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative cyber camp. Student will test their skills, learn some new ones, and polish your resume and job interview techniques to help you build a career in this meaningful field.
The camp is being held virtually and on three consecutive Saturdays––July 31, August 7, and August 14, 2021. During the camp students will be working with some of the top experts in the nation and meeting students from across Virginia who are as passionate about cybersecurity as you are.
2020 Outreach Activities
DoD HBCU Summer Research Apprenticeship Program
The Computer Science Department held a six-week Summer Apprenticeship/Internship Cybersecurity program for four high school students who were residents of the states of California and Virginia in the United States. This six-week summer training was coordinated by Dr. Samuel BO Olatunbosun of the Computer Science Department and was sponsored by the Department of the Army, a Division of the Department of Defense (DoD). The camp (held virtually due to COVID-19 restrictions) was held from June 15 to July 24, 2020.
Virtual Summer CECOR Research 2020
Dr. Jonathan Graham, Dr. C Hinds, Dr. Hu, Dr. Olatunbosun, and Dr. Williams facilitated the CECOR sponsored Summer research program for students virtually in 2020. The seven week Virtual Summer Program introduced students to Cybersecurity, Forensics, Machine Learning, Python Programming, OpenCV, Anonmaly Detection, and more.
2019 Outreach Activities
2019 Summer Research Program
Dr. Jonathan Graham facilitated the CECOR sponsored Summer research program for students at Norfolk State University. The Undergraduate research program provided opportunities for students to carry out independent research projects with the guidance of NSU Science and Technology faculty. The Students learning the latest methodologies in research while improving observation and communication skills. Through meetings with great scientists, the Summer Research program promoted awareness of the diversity of research areas.
2019 GenCyber Summer Professional Development Workshop
GenCyber is a jointly funded effort sponsored by the National Security Agency (NSA) and National Science Foundation (NSF). The GenCyber Summer cyber security summer workshop was held for regional high school teachers. The PI of grant was Dr. Jonathan Graham and he was assisted by Dr. D'Nita Graham, Dr Felicia Doswell and Mr. Wayne Andrew. The GenCyber program provided summer cybersecurity camp experiences for students and teachers at the K-12 level. The goals of the program were as follows: (1) to increase interest in cybersecurity careers and diversity in the cybersecurity workforce of the nation, (2) to help all students understand correct and safe on-line behavior and how they can be good digital citizens, and (3) to improve teaching methods for delivery of cybersecurity content in K-12 curricula.
2018 Outreach Activities
Cybersecurity Residential Summer Camp
The Computer Science Department held a one week Cybersecurity residential Summer Camp for 56 High School students from throughout the state of Virginia. This one week summer camp was coordinated by Dr. Cheryl Hinds of the Computer Science Department and sponsored by GearUp and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV). The camp was held from July 8 - 13, 2018.
8 Week Summer internship
Dr. Jonathan Graham and Dr. Cheryl Hinds facilitated an 8 week Summer internship for students from Voorhees College, Benedict College, Claflin University, South Carolisna State University The University of the Virgin Islands and Norfolk State University. The students worked in groups on several digital forensics projects as detailed below.
- Challenge Image – Angie Estien, Rhonda Forbes, Thalia Guadalupe (University of the Virgin Islands)
- Mobile Forensics – K’Torez Whetstone (Voorhees College), Arl Polydore (University of the Virgin Islands), Kelrianna Sistrunk (Benedict)
- Digital Forensics – Akeem Wilkins, Marty Everett, Trever Armstrong (Norfolk State University)
- Forensics Case Studies – Jamarcus Glenn (South Carolina State), Melvin Jackson Jr (Voorhees College), Jonathan Mott (Claflin University), David James (Voorhees College)
- Malware Deploy – Austin Alexander (Claflin University), Devonte Bethea (Claflin University), Marlin Prince (Norfolk State University)
In addition, students developed a virtual machine network, learnt Python and Linux as a part of a professional development seminar. The internship ran from May 30th until July 20th.
2017 Outreach Activities
STEM4Girls Workshop
Dr. Cheryl Hinds, Assistant Professor of the Computer Science Department taught two sessions at the STEM4Girls workshop which was held at The Advanced Technology Center in Virginia Beach and hosted by the American Association for University Women in March 2017 The title of the workshop session was " Steganography: The Art of Hiding Messages in Plain Sight" The workshop was attended by middle school girls from the Hampton Roads area.
The 2017 CASE Workshop: Cyber Psychology
June 7, 2017
The Center of Excellence in Cyber Security (COE-CS) will be hosting the second Cyber Analysis Simulation Environment (CASE-V) Workshop on June 7-8, 2017 to be held at Norfolk State University. The workshop will provide a platform for researchers and practitioners from academia, government and industry to discuss current advances in cyberpsychology research and education. The workshop will provide a forum centered upon the need to advance science of security to generate/adapt psychology/criminology theories/models to cybersecurity.
There is a lack of theories and models of user behavior in cyber environments to allow security solutions to classify user intent and capability, predict how users will react to certain stimuli and induce mitigating adversarial behavior. Security solutions will benefit from models of human behavior interacting with security systems which will provide insights into estimating impact of attack, attack objectives, appropriate response taken by defender, and predict future behavior. This workshop will provide participants insight into state-of-the art research at the intersection of psychology, forensics, sociology, modeling and cyber security. The workshop will have keynote speakers, invited talks, panel discussions and breakout sessions
2016 Outreach Activities
Community Outreach: Virginia Cyber Camp
July 11 2016
Cyber Camp to be held Jul 11 - Aug 5, 2016 at City of Portsmouth Public Schools. Sponsored by Commonwealth of Virginia.
GENCYBER Summer Camp
July 5, 2016
The Information Assurance Research Education and Development Institute (IA-REDI) at Norfolk State University is hosting a two week GenCyber Cybersecurity summer camp for High School Students, (rising 9th, through 12th grade). The camp will be held from July 5th to July 15th, 9 am to 4 pm on the Norfolk State University Campus.
GenCyber is jointly sponsored by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). The goal of this program is to increase Cybersecurity awareness among high school students and introduce them to Cybersecurity professions. The ultimate goal is to increase the number of Cybersecurity professionals in the nation as currently the USA has a shortage of Cybersecurity professionals in the workplace to defend the nation against cyber-attacks.
Please e-mail your application to (gencyber@nsu.edu) or fax it to 757 823-9229. Alternatively you may mail it to the address provided on the application form.