In the digital age, almost everyone has some interaction with computers or smart phones. Two N.C. State professors are trying to ensure it happens safely.
William Enck and Emerson Murphy-Hill, assistant professors in the department of computer science at N.C. State, recently received the Faculty Early Career Development award from the National Science Foundation.
The award, commonly known as the CAREER award, is given to model teacher-scholars who are engaged in notable research in the science and engineering field.
The award provides funding over the course of five years for the candidate’s study. The grant from NSF is valued at $400,000, according to the N.C. State Department of Computer Science’s website.
Enck’s study aims to improve the security of operating systems, with a focus on systems on mobile devices. His study is titled “Secure OS Views for Modern Computing Platforms.”
“This five-year grant was designed to help young faculty start their research agenda, and is rather prestigious,” Enck said. “It is an honor not just for the funding, winning the award shows you are among the select few.”
There have been more than 20 winners of CAREER in the computer science department, which is one of the highest concentration of winners in any department in the United States, according to the CSC website.
“My research for the past five years, including my dissertation, has been looking at mobile operating systems,” Enck said. “I realized that operating systems need better security to end users. In most systems, any application that is running can be accessed by any other program you are running. This is less than desirable because of malware and trojans that can access your data.”
More and more people are using smart phones, but the common person does not worry about their security or know which app can access what. According to Enck, users shouldn’t have to.
“My study aims to separate apps so users can control what data gets shared in a practical way,” Enck said. “Everyone wants to protect your data, but you should not have to worry about it too much.”
Enck’s received his award Feb. 1, and the funding lasts until January 2018.
Murphy-Hill’s study, titled “Expanding Developers’ Usage of Software Tools by Enabling Social Learning,” aims to make software developers more aware of apps that could be useful to them.
“One of the problems with software is that people do not know what is available,” Murphy-Hill said. “There are so many apps out there that people do not know what could be useful to them.”
Murphy-Hill used the example of looking over a peer’s shoulder. If they are using a helpful app, then you find out about it and can use it in the future. However, Murphy-Hill states that this phenomenon is rare.
“The purpose of my study is to make this phenomenon happen,” Murphy-Hill said. “We take a look at software users and programmers and let them know what would be useful to them. We will create screen casts of different apps, so others can find out things they could use.”
Murphy-Hill’s study does not only focus on programmers. His project includes outreach activities where useful programs and tools will be taught to middle school kids, helping them gain new digital skills.
Murphy-Hill also received his award in February, with the grant lasting until 2018 as well.
