Cybercrime Investigation & Cybersecurity Program Gets $430K Department of Justice Grant for Digital Evidence Education
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has awarded a new block of grant funding to the BU Metropolitan College Cybercrime Investigation & Cybersecurity (CIC) graduate program, dedicated to aligning the development and refinement of programs in computer forensics and digital evidence with the emerging and ongoing needs of law enforcement agencies.
With Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Dr. Lou Chitkushev and CIC Director Dr. Kyung-shick Choi serving as co-primary investigators, the Department of Justice-sponsored initiative entitled Student Computer Forensics and Digital Evidence Educational Opportunities Program is an effort to improve the efficacy of cybersecurity investigation and digital forensics curricula as with MET’s standout MS in Criminal Justice with concentration in Cybercrime Investigation & Cybersecurity and Graduate Certificate in Cybercrime Investigation & Cybersecurity programs.
The $431,201 award comes in addition to the $450,000 in grant support remitted to MET by the DOJ in 2019 to launch the current study, which gathers input from federal and local law agencies to then improve curricula to serve industry and agency needs.
“It is an effort to set academic standards around digital investigation, at both undergraduate and graduate levels,” says Dr. Chitkushev. Utica College partners on the grant, overseeing its undergraduate element.
Thanks to online master’s programs in both criminal justice and computer information systems perennially ranked Top-10 by U.S. News & World Report, BU MET is uniquely positioned to support the Student Computer Forensics and Digital Evidence Educational Opportunities Program, according to Dr. Choi.
“Other universities focus more narrowly on technical areas—like computer science, or computer engineering—not the traditional elements of a criminal justice education,” he says. “Few competitors take the interdisciplinary approach we do at MET.”
The supplemental funding, which brings the Department of Justice’s total support of CIC at MET to $881,201, comes in recognition of the promising results presented thus far to the agency.