MOON TOWNSHIP — Three Robert Morris University graduate students will be getting their Master’s degree in cybersecurity, all paid for by the U.S. Department of Defense.

RMU is also part of a consortium receiving federal defense funding for advanced manufacturing and development.

Anna Conover, Brett Hubbard, and Emma Phillips are the first students to benefit from this grant from the Department of Defense. The scholarship reward covers full tuition and fees, $30,000 for living expenses, $2,750 for textbooks, and a laptop computer for each student.

“Cybersecurity has been our largest enrollment program in our department and our school,” said Ping Wang, a professor of computer information systems and principal investigator of the cybersecurity scholarship program at RMU. “This designation is the highest standard of cybersecurity education in the U.S., and it helps us to position RMU as a national leader in cybersecurity education.”

The RMU Cyber Scholarship Program is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. These cybersecurity scholarships are administered by the National Security Agency. Last year, the NSA, along with the Department of Homeland Security, designated Robert Morris University as a national Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense Education.

RMU now joins Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh as the only schools in Allegheny County to get this honor. This must be re-evaluated every five years.

Robert Morris University is also part of a southwestern Pennsylvania defense project that recently received a $5 million grant Defense Department grant to strengthen defense manufacturing capabilities through an industrial production ecosystem that melds advanced metals and materials with artificial intelligence.

RMU will receive $250,000 over the course of three years. This will help the university to develop and maintain workshops, seminars, and other training sessions in 3-D or additive manufacturing as a part of this program.

“This is a recognition of our engineering and manufacturing programs,” said Maria Kalevitch, dean of the School of Engineering, Mathematics, and Science and associate provost for innovation and outreach. “It’s an opportunity to showcase RMU’s strong expertise to partners in the region and put an emphasis on the importance of academics in manufacturing industry workforce development.”