Group Description

Our project aims to support formal and non-formal agricultural educators in integrating cyberbiosecurity topics and research-based strategies for engaging middle-school-aged girls in STEM into their educational programs. Cyberbiosecurity is an emerging field that focuses on creating security measures for digital aspects of our food and agriculture systems, creating a structure and opportunity for a safe food system that can meet the large needs of a growing population and world. Our long-term aim is to use this novel disciplinary space to spark STEM career interest in middle school-aged youth in rural communities, with an emphasis on girls, to build new pipelines into cyberbiosecurity careers. This work is supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Women and Minorities in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Fields (WAMS) Grants Program, award #2020-38503-31950.