Year 2017 Students
Shatorra Flowers
Working on the panel with NSU’s Sociology and Computer Science departments was an exciting and rewarding experience. This experience has not only helped me gain knowledge and insight about cybersecurity but has also helped me to re-evaluate my everyday life. For example, I’m a college student and the convenience of the internet makes me vulnerable to cyberattacks so, now I’m more cautious about when to use my personal information and to refrain from using auto-fill when entering important information online.
Bryan Clayborne
Throughout this research project I have gained a multitude of experience that I can apply to my profession career. One aspect that I enjoyed was being able to develop a professional relationship with my sociology professors. From being able to take part in project meetings and working with professors such as Dr. Turner and Dr. Shen on a one-on-one basis. This opportunity has taught me the process of conducting research, analyzing results, and communicating these findings with others.
Jhane Thorton
The experience I received working with Norfolk State faculty and peers on this informative project was amazing. I gained so much knowledge, built new relationships, and had the ability to network with professors outside of the sociology major. In addition, this research opportunity gave me the encouragement I needed to confidently present data to large crowds. Thus, with motivating academic advisors and peer researchers, I was able to conquer my fears, and execute what I have been learning throughout my sociology curriculum at Norfolk State.
Year 2018 Students
Bryan Clayborne
For the past three semesters, I have worked on the Socio-Cybersecurity research project alongside Sociology and Cybersecurity professors. Throughout this time I have been actively engaged in the research process and student developmental procedures. This research project has reinforced sociological concepts and exposed me to new technological ones. Moreover, opportunities from this research project include presenting at the Emerging Researchers National Conference in STEM, Norfolk State University’s Undergraduate Research Symposiums, and at the grand opening of Norfolk States’ Cybersecurity Complex.
Briana Gardner
This opportunity I was given has been most enlightening and full of new experiences and possibilities. Working with the Computer Science department, learning more about cybersecurity and assisting in teach such concepts has been exhilarating. Before working on the project, my knowledge of cybersecurity concepts was very limited, but due to thorough research and discussion I have gained knowledge about a fragment of the complexities of cybersecurity. Just as I’ve stated in my part of the project, becoming knowledgeable about these concepts has become essential as cyber crimes have become common in our ever-growing technological society.
Wayne Richardson
I, Wayne Richardson graduated undergraduate student of B.A. Sociology with a concentration of Criminology experienced a wonderful internship with Dr. Turner and the Sociology department on Infusion of Socio-Cybersecurity modules into Sociology courses here at Norfolk State University. Upon being selected to work as an intern with Dr. Turner I was unsure about Socio-Cybersecurity and the project’s goals of direction towards the Sociology department and its student’s. The internship opened up opportunities of enlightenment, that I were able to use my
analytics skills and social statistics understanding to discover different learning theories that has help sociology students to better retain and understand course module’s.
Year 2019 Students
Ajari McCaster
This internship has taught me a lot about being on a team, leading a team, and communicating with people. Because I wasn’t the only researcher, I was able to check in and offer advice on collecting or analyzing data, as well as note a few effective techniques that others used in their research. Leading a team taught me how to communicate with others and solve problems when everyone isn’t on the same page. All of the situations that taught me these things helped me to be a better communicator overall. Almost every roadblock that we faced was about miscommunication because all of us were so busy. I understand now that communication is a constant thing that can make or break the integrity of a team and the validity of a project
Liquitha Rogers
This past year as a Research Assistant has been quite the transformative experience for me. I can honestly say that my participation on this Socio-Cybersecurity project has led me to reevaluate my previous career and academic goals. I now have a newfound love for academia and research. Both of which, I did not formerly possess. I thought research was tedious and time consuming prior to this experience. Well, it’s still time consuming, but not so much boring. This project has taught me that research can be fun and teaching/informing others of your research is even better. It was exciting and intellectually stimulating to bridge the fields of sociology and cybersecurity together as one.
Yasmonia Mack
Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 I had the pleasure of working on the Socio-Cybersecurity research project alongside Sociology and Cybersecurity professors. During this time I was blessed with the opportunity to be actively engaged in the research process and professional conferences.T he research project allowed me to explore cyber-security and it’s relation to sociology. I had the pleasure to present at the Emerging Researchers National Conference in STEM. There I was able to present the data collected of sociology students pre and post knowledge of cyber-security practices. It was a great experience presenting a social science poster to an audience of individuals who were predominantly of the natural science discipline.
Year 2022 students
Djomeni Djonkam
I have worked on the socio-cybersecurity project for over a year and a half at this time. Throughout this time, I have been working with the professors in both the sociology and computer science departments, while also working amongst many other student research assistants. Working on this research project I have come across a few new technological concepts that were new to me, while also implementing some sociological concepts that I was familiar to due to learning in the classroom. Since I have been on this research project for quite some time, I have been able to participate in in the RISE symposium at Norfolk State University at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
Mykel Walton
My reflection on working with the Norfolk State University Socio-Cybersecurity Project has been a positive experience. During this time, I gotten a chance to see, experience, and learn how research is done in an academic setting. Some examples included getting a chance to see all phases of conducting interviews for research. This would include gaining knowledge on how to write research interview questions in a way that you can get true and accurate information. I also gained firsthand experience in setting up interviews which can be an easy and hard task at the same time. One of the most positive experiences was conducting interviews with participants and gaining some insight in.
Mohammed Abdulai
In my experience, working on the SocioCybersecurity project for the past three semesters has been a great experience. I have had the opportunity to be a part of the design and development of the Sociocyber application. This project involves sociologists examining data generated by the experience of users when interacting with the system. My involvement in this project allowed me to learn new skills such as HTML and CSS and frameworks like Bootstrap. Additionally, I had the opportunity to collaborate and share ideas with colleagues from both departments which helped shape the face of the projects.
Juli Dutta
It’s my honor working on the Socio-Cybersecurity research project. Dr. Claude Turner, Dr. Carlene Turner, and Drs. Shen & Graham mentored this project. In this project we build an App using different software such as My SQL, PHP, HTML etc. Dr. Turner supervised building the App. The team members used to meet weekly and share their unique ideas for making the project better. I have been working as a Research Assistant in this project since Fall 2021. The best part of this project is to make people aware about cyber-attack and keep their professional and personal information secure from hackers. My role in this project is to build a socio-cybersecurity database for the app and related works. In this database we can store different work-related tasks that incorporate cybersecurity protocols such as we store survey and interview responses.
Jessie Slade
I was assigned to the Socio-cybersecurity project to interview students and employees in the area about their views on the internet and cybersecurity. As a research assistant on the team, I was able to gain a better understanding of the needs of cybersecurity training for students and some employees. During the interviews I learned that most people are uncomfortable with their lack of knowledge in cybersecurity or don’t think about it at all. This internship was a great experience. It was certainly a pleasure to work with the professors in the department. I have learned so much about research and cybersecurity while conducting interviews. I do encourage other students to seek internships in Sociology here at NSU. It is helpful, rewarding, and it enhances opportunities within the department and with corporations and organizations.
Jasmine Lambert
For the past two semesters I have had the pleasure to work on the Socio-Cybersecurity Research project. Throughout my time, I have been able to learn more about cybersecurity and how different people within the Hampton Roads area feel about the topic as well as NSU students. Conducting interviews with interviewees allowed me to understand one’s take on cybersecurity to gather data and research to help build a better app. The biggest takeaway for me from this internship is how to conduct interviews for research purposes. I love to talk to anyone about any and everything but conducting an interview is a different approach. These interviews are more formal and require a bit of background information about the subject nature just in case I get asked a question. With this experience I was able to see and feel truly ready to give interviews about anything and know how to conduct myself during one.
Student Posters
Djomeni Djonkam
Jasmine Lamber
Sobia Mushtaq
Juli Dutta
Mykel Walton
