FAU’s Department of Mathematical Sciences hosted 21 high-performing female students, ages 15 to 18, at the second Young CryptograpHers Summer Camp on July 25-29. The week-long program was held in the Rubin and Cindy Gruber Sandbox, located in the Wimberly Library on Florida Atlantic’s Boca Raton campus.
Young CryptograpHers is a cybersecurity summer camp especially designed for high school girls. Participants were introduced to the fundamental principles of cybersecurity and learned how to apply conceptual knowledge to real-world situations. The camp focused on post-quantum cryptography, the area of math that is primarily used to protect personal information in the era of quantum technology.
The program featured lectures and activities by several FAU faculty members. Three Assistant Professors from the
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Edoardo Persichetti, Ph.D., and Shi Bai, Ph.D., covered a variety of topics in post-quantum cryptography, including code-based cryptography, lattice-based cryptography, and zero-knowledge proofs and applications. William Hahn, Ph.D., also presented
a lecture about cybersecurity and how it uses artificial intelligence to increase the security of large quantities of data.
Invited guest speaker, Alexandra “Sasha” Boldyreva, Ph.D., professor and associate chair of graduate studies, College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, spoke to the group about careers in cybersecurity and life as an academic.
The goal of the camp is to motivate and inspire young women to continue their studies, as well as to pursue business, industry, government and educational careers in mathematics, quantum computing and cybersecurity.
The camp is sponsored by a grant from the National Security Agency (NSA) and covers all student costs, including registration fees, meals and gear.
For more information about upcoming Young CryptograpHers summer camp programs, contact Edoardo Persichetti at epersichetti@fau.edu.
