Jack Giardina
Jack Giardina, a recent UH West Oʻahu graduate in Information Security and Assurance, is one of four scholarship recipients of CrowdStrike Foundationʻs NextGen Scholarship awards for the 2018-2019 academic year.
Giardina, who will use the scholarship as a graduate student at Virginia Tech University, was selected for the scholarship created to support development of the next generation of talent and leadership in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. The $5,000 scholarships were the first granted by the CrowdStrike Foundation, which was established by CrowdStrike Inc., a leading company in cloud-delivered endpoint protection.
Giardina was one of the top graduates from UH West Oahuʻs Information Security and Assurance program, which is certified as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education, according to Dr. Matthew Chapman, associate professor of computer science and cybersecurity.
“Jack’s performance was outstanding in both academics and national cyber competitions,” wrote Chapman in an email. “Due to his excellent technical, writing, and presentation skills, Jack was hand-picked as an intern during his final year at UHWO, serving as the Cybersecurity Best Practices Analyst in the UHWO Cyber Security Coordination Center.”
“I have no doubt that Jack will be one of our Nation’s future leaders in protecting our country’s critical infrastructure from malicious cyber actors.”
Other scholarships were awarded to Maggie Engler, a Stanford University graduate student; George Hasseltine, a Brown University graduate student; and Nicole Krantz, a George Mason University undergraduate student.
Giardina credited the Information Security program and faculty at UH West Oʻahu as preparing him for the workforce and providing him with foundation for success in graduate school.
“The faculty had such an impressive mix of experience, that I really felt ready for work in either the private or public sector,” Giardina wrote in an email. “Many of the hard skills I learned in the program have translated easily to my current job (as a security analyst), so much so that I still think of my old classes nearly every week.”