Master of Science in Computer Science & cyber security certificate
In 2020, Nick completed a MS in computer science, with a cyber security certificate, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He was once again selected to be part of OPM’s Cybercorp SFS program in which he was able to collaborate and learn with like-minded peers. The program is designed to train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals to meet the future needs of the US government. This year, there were only 17 students selected from UMass to participate in this program. He is thrilled that he was able to complete the degree in a single year, excel with the difficult workload, and even was able to organize, administer, and teach a course himself!
Completed relevant courses At UMass
Math
MATH131 – Calculus I
MATH132 – Calculus II
MATH233 – Multivariate Calculus
MATH235 – Introduction to Linear Algebra
Electrical & Computer Engineering
ECE296 (Spring16) – Independent Study – Security Capture the Flag (Hosted by MITRE)
ECE396 (Spring17) – Independent Study – Security Capture the Flag (Hosted by MITRE)
ECE547 – Security Engineering
Computer Science / Information Security
CS121 – Intro to Problem Solving with Computers
CS187 – Programming with Data Structures
CS197C – Programming in C
CS197U – Introduction to Unix
CS197WP – Introduction to HTML/CSS
CS220 – Programming Methodology
CS230 – Computer Systems Principles
CS240 – Reasoning Under Uncertaint
CS250 – Introduction to Computation
CS290M – Physical Computing
CS305 – Social Issues in Computing
CS311 – Introduction to Algorithms
CS320 – Software Engineering
CS325 – Human-Computer Interaction
CS326 – Web Programming
CS348 – Principles of Data Science
CS365 – Digital Forensics
CS377 – Operating Systems
CS390N – Internet of Things
CS391L – Computer Crime Law
CS453 – Computer Networks
CS460 – Introduction to Computer & Network Security
CS491G – Computer Networking Lab
CS514 – Algorithms for Data Science
CS529 – Software Engineering Project Management
CS585 – Introduction to Natural Language Processing
CS589 – Machine Learning
CS590E – Ethical Considerations in Computing
CS590K – Advanced DIgital Forensics Systems
CS591CF – CyberSecurity Faculty Lecture Series
CS660 – Advanced Information Assurance
CS677 – Distributed and Operating Systems
InfoSec 690L – Internet Law and Policy
CS690s – System Defense and Test
CS690p – Secure Distributed Systems
CS696 – Independent Study – MITRE CyberEffects
Bachelor’s of Science in Computer Science
In 2018, Nick completed a BS in computer science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He finished with a 3.719/4.0 GPA and 148 credits (requirement is 120). Nick was fortunate enough to be accepted into OPM’s Cybercorp SFS program. In this program, he attended public conferences, UMass guest lectures, and SFS specific meetings where they investigated different cyber threats. During his undergraduate experience, there were only 7 students selected at UMass.
He was also a member of UMass ACM club, the cybersecurity club, and the the pentest club where he was able to gain practical skills through real-world experience. Also, he participated in multiple HackUMass events, where each team has only a few days to start from scratch and build a working prototype of something amazing. Nick’s teams’ projects included a subset of aspects of machine learning, visual analytics, mobile app development, website development, software development, distributed systems, human-computer interaction, and more.
Finally, Nick joined the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity where he has assisted in planning socials, house projects, and community service events as well as participated in many of those events. He took on the effort to create a website for the chapter, where one could read a short bio about each of the members, easily contact the group if they’re interested in joining, find out about upcoming events hosted by the fraternity, look through photos and videos from non-social events, and more. Unfortunately, the fraternity no longer exists at UMass so the website has been abandoned.
High School
Nick graduated from Burlington High school in 2014 with a GPA of 3.66/4.0 which placed him 28th in his class of 246. During his four years of high school, he kept busy by splitting his time between varsity athletics, challenging academics, volunteering and many clubs. Throughout the four years, Nick volunteered over 500 hours to the surrounding communities. He was the president of the Student Council’s Executive Board, the National Honors Society, the Italian club, and the Rotary Interact Club. He was also the student representative for the Burlington School Committee as well as the student representative on the Burlington school council.
Nick was a part of the student help desk at BHS, where he assisted students and faculty with technological issues as well as contributed articles about trending technology to the Help Desk Blog. At BHS, he also took on the personal project of creating the Student Council Blog which hosts sporting events, club events, school events, and more in a centralized and easily accessible place. Students, faculty, and parents took advantage of this as there were 900+ unique visitors creating over 2,500 unique visitors just in 2014. The blog also contained a master calendar of all of these events with corresponding posts which detailed each event that happened at the school. For this effort as well as a few other actions, he was awarded the “Red Devil” (our mascot) award when graduating.