June 30, 2011
Cohee wins scholarship from cybersecurity firm
CARBONDALE, Ill. -- Darcie L. Cohee, a senior in information systems technologies at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, is receiving up to a $15,000 scholarship from an international cybersecurity firm.
Cohee, who is from Danville, is one of two students to receive a 2011 Snort Scholarship from Sourcefire, Inc. The scholarship includes $5,000 for educational costs and up to $10,000 credit toward any training course or certification exam in the Sourcefire Security Education Program, according to the company’s website. Established in 2004, the scholarship attracted hundreds of applicants. Previous recipients come from the United States, Australia, Turkey, Mexico, and Rwanda.
Cohee is the daughter of Phil and Jennie Cohee of Danville. Cohee is currently in Philadelphia working on a summer internship with the defense division of The Boeing Company – Boeing Defense, Space & Security.
Cohee used Snort in her special security projects course, where students set up a web server and used another computer to attack the web server. Snort’s intrusion detection system monitored and mitigated the attacks, she said.
Cohee said she became aware of the possible scholarship during the spring 2011 semester from her instructor, Tom Imboden, an assistant professor in the School of Information Systems and Applied Technologies (ISAT). The program earlier this month became a National Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education from the National Security Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The program is among 145 institutions nationwide to be a Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) in Information Assurance Education.
“This shows that ISAT is attracting high-quality students, they are motivated, and they are doing well enough to gain this type of recognition from some of the best and brightest in the security industry,” Imboden said. “It speaks well of us and speaks even better for her.”
Cohee is a member of the SIUC “Security Dawgs” student cyber defense team, and president of “Tech Dawgs,” a registered student organization on campus.
The School of Information Systems and Applied Technology is within the College of Applied Sciences and Arts.