ITWF: Women and Cyber Security: Gendered Tasks and Inequitable Outcomes

CNS-0420448 Raghav Rao Institution: SUNY Buffalo Title: ITWF: Women and Cyber Security: Gendered Tasks and Inequitable Outcomes This ITWF project examines the entry, retention, and advancement of women in cyber security information technology careers. The project involves studies on undergraduates and graduates recipients of Department of Defense scholarships, current cyber security professions who hold professional certification, and a group of women who are chief information security officers in American companies. The goals are to determine possible trends of task differentiation by gender and to determine possible institutional interventions that can promote gender equity in the critical field of cyber security. The intellectual merit of this project lies in the theoretical foundations built on existing research in broader information technology fields and the potential to bring new insights to the nationally important field of cybersecurity. The focus on gender differences within the cyber security field is a largely unexplored area. This project could produce new insights that clearly illustrate the differences in the trends and practices in cyber security related to gender equity from those in other information technology sub disciplines. The broader impacts of the project lie with the potential of the results to inform curriculum and program design with colleges and universities to promote enhanced participation of women in cyber security. The multi-faceted dissemination plan should reach many different populations and thus provide a broad audience of potential beneficiaries of the results. The project includes partnership with Buffalo State College to pilot outreach activities targeted at girls in middle and high school, thus widening the pool of females who may then actively pursue careers that combine IT and cyber security.