Future cybersecurity experts are set to discuss how people can better protect their online data and identities.

This year’s commencement ceremony for the National Science Foundation’s CyberSAFE@UALR Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program will begin at 9 a.m. Friday, July 31, with project presentations in the auditorium of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock College of Business, Reynolds Building, Room 103.

A commencement ceremony will follow at 11:30 a.m. Open parking will be available in Lot 13, no reservation needed.

The CyberSAFE@UALR REU program aims to advance understanding of cyber attacks and to investigate more secure, user-friendly approaches to protecting people while they use their smartphones, post on social networks and access data in computing clouds, said Mengjun Xie, project mentor and assistant professor of computer science at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

The program features undergraduate students from the state of Arkansas, including UALR’s Jeffery Wooldridge, and from other parts of the country.

Projects that will be presented are:

• “Home Security using Computer Facial Recognition Techniques” by Oliver Roundtree, Mentor: Dr. Mariofanna Milanova
• “Secure User Authentication using Biometric and 3D Signature” by Grady Xiao, Mentors: Drs. Mariofanna Milanova and Mengjun Xie
• “Host Based Firewall for the Internet of Things” by Melissa Abramson and Alexander Jacobs, Mentor: Dr. Kenji Yoshigoe
• “Facilitating Focal Structure Analysis in Blogosphere to Monitor Cyber Warfare Tactics” by Holly Ratliff, Mentor: Dr. Nitin Agarwal
• “Authentication for Mobile Devices: Combining Behavioral Biometrics with Context” by Qing Zhong, Mentor: Dr. Mengjun Xie
• “A Web Application for Behavioral Biometric Data Collection” by Joshua Stucky, Mentor: Dr. Mengjun Xie
• “Device Auto-Recognition via Wireless Properties in Body Area Networks” by Ryan Caudill, Mentor: Dr. Shucheng Yu
• “Securing Databases Using a Combination of Encryption and Information Hiding” by Jeffery Wooldridge and Laura Nivens, Mentor: Dr. Chia-chu Chiang

Each presentation will last 10 to 20 minutes, with a five-minute question-and-answer session.

The CyberSAFE@UALR program is an eight-week intensive student research project funded by a $289,662 grant from the National Science Foundation.

Applicants to the program must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents with a 3.0 or higher grade point average. They are rising sophomores, juniors, or seniors majoring in computer science, computer engineering, math, physics, electrical engineering, or other computing-related major.