The National Security Agency (NSA) designated UT San Antonio as a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Research (CAE-R) for its doctoral programs.
The NSA awards the designation to universities with exceptional doctoral-level cybersecurity education and research. The program also aims to recognize universities that advance the priorities set forth in the 2018 National Cyber Strategy by addressing “the critical shortage of professionals with cybersecurity skills” and producing “the qualified workforce needed by the nation.”
The university first received a CAE designation in 2002, making it the first to be designated in the state, and earned its first CAE-R designation in 2009. As the cybersecurity programs grew and evolved in San Antonio — often called “Military City USA” — faculty and academic leaders intentionally built a curriculum that addressed pressing government and military cybersecurity needs.
In 2025, UT San Antonio launched the new College of AI, Cyber and Computing, bringing together academic programs and expertise in artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, computing and data science.
The university is home to a highly active cybersecurity research community supported by nearly 30 dedicated research labs and several research centers, including the Center for Data Science, Institute for Cyber Security (ICS), Center for Infrastructure Assurance & Security (CIAS), MATRIX: The UTSA AI Consortium for Human Well-Being, and the Open Cloud Institute.
“This designation affirms that UT San Antonio’s doctoral programs and research enterprise meet rigorous federal standards for advancing the nation’s cybersecurity capabilities,” said Jennifer Sharpe Potter, PhD, MPH, senior executive vice president for research and innovation. “It recognizes the depth, impact and relevance of our research, and it reflects the dedication of our faculty and staff to protecting the nation’s information infrastructure,” she added.
Fred Martin, PhD, interim dean of the College of AI, Cyber and Computing, emphasized the university’s vital role in protecting the U.S. cyberspace and supporting the National Cyber Strategy.
“A highly skilled cybersecurity workforce is a strategic national advantage. This designation confirms UT San Antonio’s role as a trusted leader in building that talent pipeline and generating the research and innovation needed to defend America’s digital future,” he said.
To qualify for the designation, the university had to demonstrate a high level of cybersecurity research activity among faculty and students in the PhD in Information Technology and PhD in Computer Science programs.
“Our graduates have left a footprint not only in academia, but also in industry and government,” said Kim-Kwang Raymond Choo, PhD, associate dean for graduate studies.
For example, alumna Chelsea Hicks, PhD, ’18 worked for the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Africa Command, and the U.S. Navy in a range of cybersecurity roles before joining Microsoft in late 2025.
Last year, alumna Bingyi Wu, PhD, ’24 received the Outstanding PhD Dissertation Award for her dissertation, “Exploring the economic value of decentralization on tokenized digital platforms.” The award was issued by IEEE Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS) Technical Committee on Blockchain and DLT and Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University Centre in Computational Technologies for Finance.
In addition to advising students in the IT program, Choo is an active researcher. In 2024, he and his collaborators proposed a new attribution method for deep neural networks that is faster and more accurate than existing methods. Attribution refers to the science of explaining how AI makes decisions — a process that is still not fully understood.
Effective through 2031, the new designation is one of several accolades recognizing UT San Antonio as a world-class destination for cybersecurity scholarship and research. The university has previously received designations by the NSA and the Department of Homeland Security in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD), Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) and Cybersecurity Research (CAE-R).
The NSA will hold a designation ceremony and formally recognize UT San Antonio later this year.
