to help explain what has become a quickly expanding field ragsdale defines cybersecurity as a study of the conflict and competition the conflict takes place in code and in systems that people work with on a daily basis but its more than just as he puts it bits and bytes we need to bring academic disciplines that arent only technically oriented into the cybersecurity community he said you can think of computer science information technology computer engineering and information management those are the people that address the software part but to address the conflict and competition aspect of cybersecurity we need to engage with folks that are involved in psychology behavioral science sociology ethics law and business all of them at least in part address inherent conflict or competition that is a part of our human nature that need for an interdisciplinary approach is why he believes tees and texas a&m are perfectly positioned to be at the forefront of cybersecurity research texas a&m has an internationally renowned group of faculty who are already engaged in groundbreaking cybersecurity research he said additionally the university benefits from having great facilities which enable much of this impressive research portfolio and finally it is a well-known fact that texas a&m a premier land-grant institution has absolutely fantastic students the combination of great faculty great facilities and great students give me tremendous confidence that a&m will soon move to the very forefront of cybersecurity research and education with 16 colleges more than 3 500 faculty members and almost $900 million in research annually texas a&m can bring cybersecurity into many disciplines we have always had pockets of excellence in a variety of places around the campus for folks doing cybersecurity research he said now because we have a center we can connect the dots as we have interactions with sponsoring agencies for example theyre seeing theres more of a holistic program in place now the added focus on this field also brings benefits to texas a&m students ragsdale said the cybersecurity industry is expecting tens of thousands of jobs in the near future that it currently doesnt have a workforce to fill he describes bringing a focus on cybersecurity to the students of texas a&m almost a moral obligation going beyond students who may enter the actual cybersecurity field though ragsdale emphasizes that more and more fields require knowledge of cybersecurity earlier this semester texas a&m announced a minor in cybersecurity starting next academic year with a curriculum that involves courses from six different colleges ragsdale said there has already been off-the-charts interest from students we have students that are interested in this he said they are captivated and they know the significance of it they get it they look to us for curriculum offerings that will allow them to pursue something theyre interested in and at the same time prepare them for important work working with those students is why ragsdale decided to give up what he described as a great job that he loved at darpa to come back to college station we were doing important work hanging out with all the cool kids making the world a better place he said but i had very little interaction with students and i missed that so much when this opportunity at texas a&m presented itself i said i could continue to do important work but at the same time i can be engaged with young men and women in classroom settings in lab settings and in club settings much as i expected it has already been a tremendously rewarding and fulfilling experience for me