A new $2.5 million grant given to the University of New Haven points towards the impact of rapidly improving AI technology on the job market, as well as a growing intersection between artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

The National Security Agency gifted UNH the funds to lead a coalition of five universities across the United States in developing workforce programs for careers in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. The grant will allow the universities to develop programs to train the future workforce in four sectors: energy, government facilities, finance and telecommunications. UNH intends to create two pathways — a pathway for cyber threat intelligence in the financial sector and a pathway for artificial intelligence in cybersecurity. 

“We have a very strong cyber program, we also have a lot of AI and machine learning courses, so we are playing with how we can create programs and pathways in the intersection of the two,” Tirthankar Ghosh, the director of UNH’s Connecticut Institute of Technology and the university administrator who applied for the grant, said. “Nowadays, we cannot stay away from using machine learning — you’re sort of required to integrate AI into cyber security. We are seeing more and more of it, so it is becoming less and less of a choice.”

The new university courses will use cybersecurity frameworks from the Department of Defense and other federal agencies, promising skills and pathways for students to enter cybersecurity careers directly. 

The NSA grant comes after a wave of career-oriented grants received by the university intended to provide students with credentials that appeal to employers. A game design program, for example, has been successful at preparing students for a demanding job market, a UNH professor told the News. 

In past years, UNH has received funding from the Connecticut Higher Education Tech Talent Accelerator to embed industry-recognized credentials into its game design and development concentration. These standards were produced by leading game development company Unity Technologies. The initiative also allowed students to receive game design and development certifications directly from Unity.

According to Mehdi Mekni, who leads the university’s game design and development concentration, the program has provided students the opportunity to receive both formal education and practical work experience. 

Mekni said that combining education with more career-focused skill-building has resulted in impressive capstone projects and given students an edge upon entering the job market. In a time of increasing concern surrounding the tech job market, Mekni believes that programs like these allow students to set themselves up for success.

“The market has evolved,” Mekni said. “The need for computer science talent is still there. The thing that is misleading is asking the question, should they go to college or should they do certificates? The actual answer to that is both.”

Concerns about the job market for tech and computer science jobs are partially due to the large advancements in AI technologies in recent years, Sean O’Brien, founder of the Yale Privacy Lab initiative at Yale Law School said. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into industry, it may pose unique threats to different sectors. The NSA grant aims to ease the friction of AI entering the cybersecurity field. 

O’Brien said AI has already started to increase vulnerabilities within the cybersecurity sphere. Generative AI models have and will continue to be used for digital attacks, through source code scanning or personalized phishing attacks. O’Brien echoed Ghosh’s comments, describing how for cybersecurity specialists, learning how to use artificial intelligence is not optional — if attackers are using AI technologies to find vulnerabilities, defenders need to learn to harness AI as well.

“From a career perspective, how folks can differentiate themselves is to learn technologies and learn skills that are sort of at the edges, and to have crossover in their skill sets,” O’Brien said. “For example, have a good understanding of policy and regulation and law, but also have a good understanding of the issues inherent with AI and cybersecurity … It is going to be in that specialization that folks are going to stand out from the crowd.”

The University of New Haven’s central campus is located in West Haven.