Hi there! My name is Evan Wang, and welcome to my blog. I am a rising sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh’s College of Business Administration majoring in Finance and Business Analytics. Some of my hobbies include making music and following baseball.

This summer I have the privilege of participating in a new summer research fellowship called the SHURE-Grid program which is in collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory. I am excited to work in this program for numerous reasons, one of which is because of the people with whom I will be collaborating. Since it is an interdisciplinary program, I will have the chance to work with people outside of the business school, such as students majoring in computer science and engineering. I will also be able to learn from Pitt faculty who have years of experience in the field and staff from INL. This is a chance to expand my breadth of knowledge and take part in something that is bigger than myself.

My team has chosen to address the problem of justifying the use of cyber-informed engineering (CIE). For some context, CIE is best described as the implementation of cyber security practices in the design process of critical infrastructure systems to prevent or mitigate the effects of cyber attacks. There are a few aspects to this problem. Organizations need to be convinced that traditional cybersecurity practices are not sufficient for protecting current or future energy grid infrastructure and that cyber-informed engineering provides a significant advantage in the protection of such infrastructure. This will include justifying costs, timetables, and overall functionality of CIE. However, it is not just organizational executives that must be convinced of the boons of CIE. Engineers and cyber security experts within these organizations must also be on board with the idea. These systems will need to be engineered with current and future methods of cyber attacks in mind.

Overall, I am excited to begin the research process which first starts with getting out into the field and interviewing experts. My team has already reached out to experts at INL and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.