The USMA Cyber Policy Team achieved excellence, by placing first at the Atlantic Council's Cyber 9/12 regional policy competition at Columbia University. Competing against 21 other teams, mostly from graduate schools, the USMA team was the only undergraduate team to make it to the finals, beating three other teams (two from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs and one from Tuft's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The cadets formed an interdisciplinary team, from multiple academic disciplines, that drew upon their knowledge of international affairs, cybersecurity, national security, and international law to demonstrate their mastery of policy concepts in the cyber domain. (http://sipadcg.org/cyber-912-awards/)
The team was made up of Cadets: Dancer - International Relations, ’17; Fairfield - Human Geography, ’18; Maixner - Computer Science, ’17; and Wissman - Systems Engineering, ’17. They were led by CPT Rhoades, CY (D/SOC and ACI) as their coach and MAJ Schultz, CY (ACI) as their assistant coach. The cadets spent countless hours ahead of time preparing for this competition and during the competition they worked through the night after the first day of the competition to prepare for their semi-final round brief that received many accolades from the judges and their competition. The other teams remarked that they were impressed with the West Pointers and their ability to handle pressure, as well as their knowledge of cyber policy. They received similar accolades from the judges in the final round. Their first place finish guaranteed them a slot in the Atlantic Council's Cyber 9/12 national competition this coming spring. Additionally, LTC Handler (D/SOC) served as one of the four final round judges and MAJ Lonergan (ACI) and Dr. Borghard (D/SOC) served as preliminary round judges. Other faculty from D/SOC, D/EECS, and ACI helped observe cadet practice briefs and provided feedback leading up to the competition, demonstrating the interdisciplinary and collaborative needs of cyber.