Faculty Spotlight: David Zeichick

Dr. David Zeichick is an assistant professor in Chico State’s department of Computer Science, where he teaches cybersecurity. Shortly after earning his master’s degree at Chico State in 2006, he was hired on campus as a security analyst in the Information Security department. A dozen years ago, he started as a lecturer in the Computer Science department; he continued to do contract work with the Information Security department. In 2019, he was hired as a professor. He completed his PhD in 2020 and is now a candidate for tenure on the Chico State faculty.

He recently spoke with us about his commitment, on and off campus, to inspire students to get involved in cybersecurity. Excerpts of the conversation follow here.

Q: When you were a lecturer and working in Information Security simultaneously, how did your work in one department inform your work in the other?

A: Well, students love stories, so I tried to bring up things that happened in the Information Security department that I could talk about, and give real-world examples of cybersecurity: What does the cybersecurity department do? What does a forensic investigation look like? Why should you choose good passwords?

Q: Are you still using those stories in your teaching?

A: Definitely.

Q: Do you find that they land with your students?

A: Absolutely. They all perk up when I talk about real-world, personal experiences, rather than just lecture material.

Q: Is experience in the field something that you see as a strength of Chico State’s Computer Science department?

A: Across higher education, fewer professors have industry experience. The normal track is to go straight from an undergraduate program to graduate school and through a PhD program. My department is unique, however, and there are several professors who took a different track. They opted to work in industry, between undergraduate and graduate school, or right after graduate school, and then came to work in the university.

Also, since we're part of the California State University system, we're more of a teaching institution than research-oriented. That probably attracts more people who have worked in the industry. We’re teaching students skills to prepare them for a career, and that practical experience really helps.

Q: You’re the director of Chico State’s Online MS in Computer Science program. How do you feel that it prepares students for what they'll find in the industry?

A: We have a lot of faculty who still have good ties to, and understanding of, industry needs. We also meet with an industry advisory board every year, to go through what we teach, what they want to see us teach more of, and guide us through some of that material.

Our undergraduate program provides a strong foundation in computer science. In the master’s program, we’re getting more specific and training up the skills that are useful for a more in-depth understanding of computer science and practical applications. We offer courses in cybersecurity—that's the one I teach—and machine learning, which is a hot topic right now.

There are two types of machine learning classes. One involves students creating the algorithms that would be used to create machine learning, while the other has them applying machine learning to solve problems. We're doing both. They're understanding exactly how machine learning works, and they can dig a little deeper to understand and maybe even help improve algorithms for machine learning. At the same time, we're also showing how to apply it in, say, our computer vision class. That's a practical implementation of machine learning: How do machines see and what should you be using for all of that?

Q: You're very active in the field, outside of the university.

A: I'm the commissioner of the National Cyber League. Every year, we have over 20,000 participants in the National Cyber League competition. At one point, somewhere around 40% of all people who were recently in cybersecurity fields participated in the National Cyber League competition. So, it has a good impact.

I was drawn to it over 10 years ago when I was trying to make my cybersecurity intro class a little more hands-on. I wanted to incorporate a cybersecurity competition into the class as a lab, and I found the National Cyber League. I started having that as a lab in my intro classes, and my students were doing really well. We've had student teams just this last season. They came in first nationwide, out of thousands of teams and thousands of schools.

Q: What happens in a cybersecurity competition?

A: The National Cyber League competition is “Jeopardy!”-style, and there are several different phases to it. In the first phase, we have a gymnasium where students can come in and they learn about what the challenges are and how to solve them.

The next phase is a practice competition. It's over a whole week. And again, it's the “Jeopardy!” style where there are nine categories and the students choose different challenges—easy, medium, hard—from each category. They stand to get more points if they choose a harder challenge. At that point, they can actually work with other people to try and solve problems.

The next phase is an individual game. Just as it sounds, they work on the game individually over a long weekend. It starts Friday morning, and the competition then ends Sunday night, and they have those three days to solve as many challenges as possible from the same nine categories.

A couple of weeks after that, we have a team game: There are up to seven individuals on a team and, over a three-day weekend, they also solve challenges.

As part of the competition, we give out what's called a scouting report. It shows how well competitors did across each of the categories, and we map those categories to particular jobs. So, if you want to be the Security Operations Center person, you should know certain categories well and do well in them. If you want to be an encryption specialist, you should do well in certain other categories, and so on.

I incorporate the competition into my intro class (that all students in computer science have to take). I have them do some of the gym questions as labs, and then I partner them up to do the practice game, and then they get lab points for competing in the individual game. It’s not like they have to place to get their points, but they have to get a certain number of points to get a certain grade.

Q: What do you do as commissioner of the NCL?

A: I hold monthly calls with coaches (we call instructors coaches) and talk about the game: try to get them prepared, have a community for other coaches to interact and see what works to help prepare students.

I also go to conferences and talk about how to incorporate competitions in a class, and the success of using competitions to teach cybersecurity. In talking to the instructors, I'm hoping they figure out how to get more of their students involved in cybersecurity.

Q: What about your work on campus with the Usr0—User Zero—club?

A: I'm the faculty advisor for that, and the goal is to get more students involved outside of the classroom, in the club environment. They compete at NCL, and I take them to other competitions, like one at Stanford, which is a week-long competition. And then we go to the Security Conference, which is in San Francisco. There's a big one called RSA that we go to every year.

Q: Are you still in touch with alumni who are working in the field?

A: Pacific Gas and Electric is one of the largest utility companies in the world in terms of customers served. Some of my alumni are employed there and they give the Usr0 club a tour, so the club can see what the security looks like. They do some job shadowing with people there. That's why I bring them to a place like PG&E: to show them this is what people are actually doing on the job.

I bring in alumni to talk about what they currently do and what they did to get the job. "Hey, there's somebody that was sitting in your seat a few years ago and now they are in the field. How did they get there?"

Q: What stories can you share of any of your graduates?

A: Just two years ago, there was a big conference called Black Hat, which is THE cybersecurity event. For people to come and speak at this event, they usually have years of experience; it's very vetted. It's a really hard thing to get into, to become a speaker. One of my students, who was just a year out—his speech was accepted. I was able to go see him give a talk in front of probably hundreds of people, in this giant ballroom, on a vulnerability that he discovered.

We also have our Usr0 meetings every week. We have a lot of them in person, but we'll also stream for people who aren't there. We have alumni who graduated four or five years ago and are still participating in the club. They don’t want to leave it behind. They want to stay involved.

Q: Why do you think that students should join Chico State’s Online MS in Computer Science program?

A: We have small cohorts. And with that, you have direct access to actual professors. In other, larger online programs, maybe the professor makes the material, but you're not even necessarily going to interact with the professor; you might interact with the teaching assistant. Our classes are actually led by the professor, created by the professor, with office hours by the professor. Any questions or emails about any of the material or lectures will go directly to the professor and be answered by the professor.

We're focused on teaching. We do research, also, and the research that a lot of us publish is on how to teach effectively in our particular subject area. So, most of our research is into teaching methods. We’re very focused on what is the best way to get the material across.

Q: What do you think draws computer science students to Chico State?

A: In talking to students, I’m told that they hear good things about Chico State in terms of the material we're teaching being practical. And they’re hearing that students who graduate are getting good jobs in the industry. That's huge. That's exactly what they want. “If I'm going to spend time and energy, I want this to pay off.” I know that's how they're making their decision.

Learn from Dr. David Zeichick and other seasoned industry veterans in Chico State’s Online MS in Computer Science program. These supportive, engaging faculty experts will help you build the problem-solving skills that can make you a surefire hiring choice.

In the small-class environment of this flexible online program, you’ll build proficiencies in advanced topics that are essential for your career ascent: cybersecurity, applied machine learning, software design, programming, AI, database management, and more.

Don’t wait to make your move. Review the admissions schedule and financial aid opportunities, and schedule a call with an admissions outreach advisor today.