Delivered by the School of Computing and Engineering and Hartford HealthCare, the March 28 interdisciplinary desktop simulation unfolded over a fast-moving seven hours in the auditorium on the Mount Carmel Campus. Students were not required to have prior business, healthcare, legal or coding knowledge and were encouraged to participate in roles outside their majors.

“One of the best elements of this event is that it brings students from disparate areas of campus together as these multidisciplinary teams,” said John Bau, assistant dean for student experience and career development.

“Additionally, this is an element of experiential education allowing students to get a shot at real-world problems and opportunities with a one-day experience that they’re going to be able to talk about on their resume, in cover letters and interviews. It helps get them ready for whatever comes next,” Bau said.

Scenarios were developed by Hartford HealthCare together with information security partners led by Presidio, ReliaQuest and CrowdStrike. The day’s program was led by Chetan Jaiswal, associate professor of computer science at the School of Computing and Engineering; David Tomczyk, associate professor of entrepreneurship and strategy at the School of Business and Hartford Healthcare Manager of Incident Response Conor Phoenix.

Over 40 students were sorted into executive teams, filling roles such as chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief technology officer, chief information security officer, chief marketing/communications officer, chief medical officer and general council/chief legal officer.

Their morning began with team budget and strategy meetings, where executives presented and defended their department’s top five initiatives for the company’s $200 million budget in the new fiscal year. In their strategic planning, they identified risks, developed protocols, controls and other tools to tackle legal issues, patient care needs, workforce concerns and cybersecurity measures.

“We want to see how they prioritize their money, if they’re investing in infrastructure, cybersecurity equipment, fire walls. We want to test their skills,” said Jaiswal.

In the afternoon session, Bobcats pushed themselves to develop strategies and implement fixes in response to rolling cybersecurity scenarios injected into the competition. All day, team decisions were channeled into Google documents being reviewed in real-time by judges on site.

Bobcats also had the benefit of networking with legal, healthcare, business and cybersecurity professionals circulating among the teams. Hartford HealthCare’s Kevin Hamel, vice president of IT operations and technology platforms and chief information security officer, helped Jaiswal launch the competition program at Quinnipiac last year and was back this year to assist and advise students.

“We’ve tried to make it as realistic as possible. The intent is to get the students engaged in thinking and talking with other business leaders from the local area and other technology folks from the local area,” Hamel said. “My hope with this is that the students are able connect what they’re learning and hearing in the classroom with what happens in the real world. They’re the future leaders, so it’s good for them to have a real-world perspective.”

Hamel said he was impressed by the Bobcats’ enthusiasm for their work.

“They’re all really engaged. They’re curious and they’re trying things. They’re talking among themselves. They’re asking questions of the coaches. I love the level of engagement and curiosity, and some of what they’re putting together for content is well thought out and very presentable,” said Hamel.

Federal Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency member Abad Cabassa was another visiting professional helping to coach students.

“I’ve been able to bring to the table some of the experiences that I’m seeing out there during preparation exercises or real-world events, and you can see the lightbulbs going off when I’m talking to them. It’s helping them to take appropriate steps to prepare more in certain areas,” said Cabassa. 

Serving as a student coach and one of the event’s three judges, Hartford Healthcare Director of Security Engineering Mica Millbach said the students were absorbing new information and gaining valuable experiential learning.

“There’s some lively conversation and a lot of it is trying to understand the problem at hand, first,” said Millbach “They’re seeing it’s one thing to roll up your sleeves and start hitting spreadsheets. It’s another to actually try to balance the real-world situation. You can’t take 100 percent of your budget to solve cybersecurity. They’re trying to balance the needs of the organization. The better they understand the needs of the organization, the better they can make good estimates on how much to budget.”

Mechanical engineering major Ryan Santos ’26, who served as a CEO for the day, said he signed up for the CyberCase Competition to gain a different perspective and new learning experiences.

“The collaboration is really good. We’re all playing a big role in what’s going on," said Santos. "I can see how everyone has different experiences and they all can contribute to problems from different angles.”

Computer science major Jaiden Palazzo ’28 was chief legal officer for her team. Palazzo said she was learning a lot and appreciated the chance to participate as a first-year student.

“I thought it was a good opportunity to get introduced to it so I could be prepared when I move into further years,” Palazzo. “It’s also good to see the different aspects of the team and how they all work together.”

Computer science major Thomas Morrissey ’26 said he was absorbing new insights in his role as chief medical officer.

“In this sort of war games that we’re doing, my role is to act on behalf of the patients and surgeons and try to prioritize the peoples’ interests and uphold ethics,” said Morrissey. “We all have our different priorities, and we have to figure it out. I think that’s the best part.”

Cybersecurity graduate student Akash Ali pulled double duty as CEO and chief information security officer for his team.

“It’s good to have the cybersecurity perspective in there, but I’m also trying my best not to let that confirmation bias get in the way of my decision planning,” said Ali. “It’s good to look at it with a more nuanced scope, and that’s why my other team members are here to help me out.”

Competition judge Frederick Scholl, director of Quinnipiac’s cybersecurity master's program, said he was impressed by the work of the cross-disciplinary group of students. Scholl said the competition also aligned in many ways with the perspective of the cybersecurity master’s program.

“The prompts that they’re going through are not just technical cybersecurity prompts. They involve business, they involve people," Scholl said. "Cybersecurity is all about protecting the business with people assets, so I think they’re getting exposed to all the issues. I’m really impressed because that’s what we do in our program."

Competition judge Tom Keogh, principal at risk management firm Square One Risk LLC, said he was enjoying the opportunity to share his insights with students.

“It’s neat. The students are asking great questions. I really credit Quinnipiac for bringing together cybersecurity professionals with students from different disciplines,” said Keogh.

Keogh said Bobcats were pushing boundaries in their thinking as incoming prompts forced them to assess, make defensible assumptions, and use that to guide their decisions.

“So much of this is in the context of cyber compromise, but ultimately, a computer system or a network getting compromised isn’t the whole story. There’s that whole ‘…and then what’ element, and that’s what these students are experiencing,” said Keogh.