School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems

The School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS) integrates a range of educational programs and interdisciplinary research. Our programs integrate computational and data sciences with engineering, natural and social sciences, arts, and business. Our faculty and academic programs combine expertise in environmental and ecological informatics, health and bioinformatics, computer science, and electrical engineering.

Director’s Welcome

Who We Are

Our Degrees

We offer undergraduate and graduate programs in Informatics, Electrical Engineering, and Computer Science. Our students are involved in a broad range of research and applied experiences. Explore our programs below!

Undergraduate

Graduate

Research & Emphasis Areas

Our school’s faculty, students, and staff bring interdisciplinary expertise to bear on applied and basic research problems in several emphasis areas, and in partnership with a variety of local and global partners. SICCS currently emphasizes five major areas of research.

Schmitz, Oswald J., et al. “Animals and the zoogeochemistry of the carbon cycle.” Science 362.6419 (2018): eaar3213.
Ogle, Kiona. “Hyperactive soil microbes might weaken the terrestrial carbon sink.” Nature (2018): 32.
Richardson, Andrew D., et al. “Ecosystem warming extends vegetation activity but heightens vulnerability to cold temperatures.” Nature 560.7718 (2018): 368.
Buermann, Wolfgang, et al. “Widespread seasonal compensation effects of spring warming on northern plant productivity.” Nature 562.7725 (2018): 110.
McManamay, Ryan A., et al. “US cities can manage national hydrology and biodiversity using local infrastructure policy.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114.36 (2017): 9581-9586.
Lu, Xiankai, et al.“Plant acclimation to long-term high nitrogen deposition in an N-rich tropical forest.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115.20 (2018): 5187-5192.

Our research is supported through collaborations with other university entities such as:

Our regional research partners include:

News

Take a look at what’s currently happening in the world of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems.

NAU TV covers exciting developments in new SICCS degree programs with Director Ben Ruddell

SICCS Associate Prof. Teki Sankey delivers workshop in Mongolia

Associate Professor Teki Sankey from NAU SICCS and Dr. Joel Sankey, Research Geologist from the USGS lead a workshop titled “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Satellite Remote Sensing for Forest Management” on November 22, 2019 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The Asia Foundation Mongolia hosted the workshop in collaboration with the US Embassy in Mongolia. The workshop was attended by Mongolian university faculty and students as well as Ulaanbaatar city government officials and environmental officers responsible for the forest management in the greenbelt surrounding the city. The city’s greenbelt forests are potentially facing illegal firewood harvest due to a new ban on raw coal burning in the city for household heating. Dr. Teki Sankey introduced new remote sensing methods and UAV techniques for monitoring the forest resources. The Asia Foundation Mongolia published a Facebook post about the workshop. Dr. Teki Sankey and Dr. Joel Sankey also presented remote sensing seminars at the Mongolian University of Life Sciences, the National University of Mongolia, and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences during their visit to Mongolia.

Can open source software be gender-biased? Yes, say NAU professors who are working to eliminate gender-biased ‘bugs’

SICCS professors Igor Steinmacher and Marco Geraso are half a team that aims to identify gender bias in code, then propose ways to redesign the OSS documentation and eventually create a list of best practices for fixing gender-bias bugs in both products and processes. Read more

Inside NAU covers Dr. Andrew Richardson and PhenoCam

A new paper by Northern Arizona University professor Andrew Richardson published in the journal Scientific Data describes a vast network of digital cameras designed to capture millions of images documenting seasonal changes of vegetation across North America. The network, dubbed PhenoCam, is the result of a 10-year collaboration between Richardson, who led the effort, and scientists from the University of New Hampshire and Boston University to develop a reliable continental-scale observatory of phenological phenomena.

SICCS is looking for a Lecturer in Computer Science and Informatics

We are hiring a Lecturer in Computer Science and Informatics. Job ID: 604646 More details

SICCS is looking for a Lecturer in the area of cybersecurity

We are hiring a Lecturer in the area of cybersecurity . Job ID: 604738 More details

NAU team races to find cybersecurity solutions

According to cyber experts, it could be a matter of years before hackers are able to access everything from personal files to bank accounts, unless new technologies can beat them to it. Dr. Bertrand Cambou and Dr. Paul Flikkema are the lead investigators in a research project that was awarded a $6.3 million grant from the U.S. Air Force. Read more

Dr. Fatemeh Afghah receives 2019 US AFRL Young Investigator Award for Autonomous UAV network for Disaster Management

Dr. Fatemeh Afghah, Assistant Professor at SICCS was one of the 40 young researchers and scientists to receive the 2019 US AFRL Young Investigator Award for Autonomous UAV network for Disaster Management through the Air Force’s Young Investigator Research Program (YIP). The Young Investigator Research Program recipients receive a three year grant totaling $450,000 Read more

SICCS is looking for Assistant/Associate/Full Professor in Cybersecurity Engineering and Electrical Engineering

We are hiring an open-rank faculty in the area of cybersecurity. Job ID: 604642 More details.

NAU-TGen study finds West Nile Virus now a permanent part of Arizona ecosystem

“Crystal Hepp, an assistant professor at NAU’s School of Inform atics, Computing, and Cyber Systems, is the lead author on the study, which analyzed the genetic material of West Nile Virus (WNV) directly from mosquitos collected in Arizona to build out a genomic family tree of the virus.”Read more

Research led this grad student from the Arctic to Arizona, then into the most prestigious fellowship in STEM

“I became increasingly interested in remote sensing—what information we can extract from images, how this information can stretch field data across regions and what discoveries can be made as a result,” she said. “It was this interest that spurred me to return to school and further my education.” Read More

NAU electrical engineers to lead development, commercialization of next-gen cybersecurity solutions for Internet of Things

The security platform Afghah and her team are developing is a software-hardware hybrid implementing physically unclonable functions that rely on the unique properties of a device’s memory—variabilities generated through the fabrication process—to provide a technological “fingerprint” unique to each device. Read More

Data scientists mapped supply chains of every U.S. city. What it says is bigger than just where your food comes from.

“Members of the public should know where their food, energy and water are coming from, to understand how connected they are,” he said. “That can affect the way they see the world, and it can make you realize that problems in other places—other people’s problems—are actually your problems too.” Read More

By the numbers

1025

Undergraduate Students

87

Graduate Students

53%

International & Minority Students

$4.8M

Research expenditures (11% increase from 2018)

School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems