Voorhees Computer Science major at Sandia National Labs

August 02, 2016

Joshua Russ, a Voorhees College computer science major, is completing a summer internship as a Consortium Enabling Cybersecurity Opportunities and Research (CECOR) scholar for Sandia National Laboratories, a company that delivers essential science and technology to resolve the nation’s most challenging security issues.

Sandia, a federally funded company by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National and Nuclear Security Administration, has sustained a strong science, technology and engineering foundation for more than 60 years. Through capable research staff working at the forefront of innovation, collaborative research with universities and companies, and discretionary research projects with significant potential impact, Sandia is able to stand behind their mission to leverage capabilities, enabling the company to solve complex national security problems. 

A twenty three-year-old rising sophomore, Russ is currently at Sandia in Albuquerque, N.M. where he is assisting with the development of the sixth and seventh versions of a forensic training module called Tracer FIRE. 

Tracer FIRE teaches its users configuration methods for Windows Server, Windows Exchange, and VyOS in a virtual environment. The project runs on XenCenter, an open-sourced virtualization platform that acts as a hypervisor that provides services to multiple computer operating systems on the same hardware. 

Russ feels the knowledge he has gained in cybersecurity and server configuration in his short time as a CECOR intern will prepare him for a positon within Sandia or another cyber-related company.  “Having the opportunity to work alongside other interns my age enables us to bounce ideas off of each other and allows me to network while gaining valuable technical experiences,” said Russ. 

Sandia recently sent Russ to the University of the Virgin Islands for a one-week cybersecurity boot camp where he was joined by  fellow Voorhees computer science major J’Von Jenkins.  During the camp, Russ and Jenkins served as mentors to students in grades K-12, demonstrating preventative measures for internet network hacking and how to fully secure personal online profiles.

Jenkins was able to mentor the students, but also gained a lot of knowledge on cybersecurity from the instructors.
(Russ - left, Jenkins - right)

“Our computer science program offers many opportunities to get hands-on experiences and learn new concepts outside of Voorhees as well, that makes learning about cybersecurity that much more exciting,”  Jenkins said.