Students from the Anderson University Center for Cybersecurity have hit their stride. This spring, they have posted impressive team and individual performances in the National Cyber League’s NCL Games.
Seven Anderson University teams competed in a field of 898 teams. Anderson University (SC) moved up to ninth-place in the Cyber Power Rankings nationally, outperforming some of the country’s premier institutions that included the University of Central Florida and the U.S. Military Academy—up from number 45 last semester. The ranking also makes Anderson University the highest-ranked Christian institution in the competition.
“The achievements of our cybersecurity students are extremely impressive. Instead of competing against other schools on a court or field, our cybersecurity students are competing against teams from other universities with their minds, keyboards, and computers in the cyberspace domain,” said Brandon Grech, assistant professor of Cybersecurity. “Imagine if a college basketball team or football team was ranked number 9 in the country against all colleges and universities (including Division I); that is the same accomplishment our cybersecurity students have just achieved in their own field of competition. Most importantly, this shows how well our students are ready to apply their skills and abilities in the workforce.”
The school Cyber Power Rankings are determined by each school’s Top Individual, Top Team and Number of Participants.
Team Competition Results:
- No. 10 — elusive@au (Eric Watkins, Seth Taylor, Andrew Emerson, Mason Kellam, Sofia Deambrosi, Alexis Mahaffey and Michael Pavel)
- No. 38 — AU_PH1SH3RSOFM3N (Camden Sloan, Kyle Beauregard, Zachary Lee, Aaron McCurry and Charlie Paddock)
- No. 113 — BinaryBandits (Kendall Davenport, Jacob Cordeiro, Cory Freeburn, Sean St Clair, Charles Flaherty and Cooper Rylands)
- No. 116 — Cipherchase (Nicholas Fowler, Jaimee Smith, Meredith Frick, Jack Treaster, Mittie Borden and Courtney Blum)
- No. 142 — GGG+G (Genevieve Bronson, Annie Nastasi, Caleb Boyter and Murphy Smith)
Individual Competition Results:
Two Anderson University students were in the Top 50 in a field of ~3,300 other students (top 2%): Eric Watkins (Splorpy) 48th and Seth Taylor 49th.
Additional Anderson University students placing high in individual competition were:
- Aaron McCurry (atmcc) 186th (Top 6%)
- Camden Sloan (Go Phish) 257th (Top 8%)
- Genevieve Bronson (bigshot) 266th (Top 9%)
- Zachary Seiter (SirAppleS33d) 405th (Top 13%)
- Annie Nastasi (Anastasi) 462nd (Top 14%)
- Joshua Karpus (KarpetK) 474th (Top 15%)
- Jacob Cordeiro (cord_jacob) 541st (Top 17%)
- Kyle Beauregard (KOOL_KYLE) 643rd (Top 20%)
Other noteworthy students who completed the competition were Michael Pavel, Meredith Frick, Murphy Smith, Nicholas Fowler, Cooper Rylands, Courtney Blum, Cory Freeburn, Zachary Lee and Jaimee Smith.
Details about Cybersecurity degree programs at Anderson University can be found online here.