Fowler Students Take Home Two Awards During the 2021 Student Research Symposium

Approximately 300 San Diego State University students participated in the university’s annual Student Research Symposium held March 19 – 20, 2021. Graduate and undergraduate students from the seven academic colleges and the SDSU Imperial Valley campus gave oral presentations or displayed posters that showcased the research projects they led with their faculty advisors.

SDSU accounting senior, Isabella Gaffney

Now in its 14th year, the Student Research Symposium is a public forum that offers students the opportunity to share their research, scholarship and creative accomplishments with a panel of judges who determine the prizes awarded during the symposium. This year marks the first time that the event was staged in a virtual environment. 

Two entries from the Fowler College of Business were awarded the Dean’s Award for 2021. They are: 

Big Data Analytics and Visualization P-Card Fraud
Principal Author: Isabella Gaffney
Faculty Advisor: Yan Luo

Isabella Gaffney, a senior majoring in accountancy at SDSU’s Charles W. Lamden School of Accountancy, focused her research on how and why p-card fraud happens among employees and how data analytics and visualization tools such as Tableau, Excel, Access and SAS can detect this type of fraud. 

“When you think of a p-card, think of a company credit card given to employees to pay for business expenses rather than submitting numerous reimbursement requests,” said Gaffney. “My research is important because the world we live in revolves around technology and being able to efficiently and effectively work with technology is critical to an organization’s success.” 

From left: Marc Perez (MSIS student), Professor Bongsik Shin, Professor Aaron Elkins, Eric Monette (MSIS graduate), Alex Nestler (MSCM student), Lance Cameron (MSCM student) and Lance Larson (co-director of the SDSU Graduate Program in Homeland Security)

Threat Intelligence Modeling Environment
Principal Author: Lance Cameron (MSCM)
Co-Authors: Alexander Nestler (MSCM), Marc Perez (MIS)
Faculty Advisor: Bongsik Shin

This team of students and faculty worked together to create a solution to automate data collection and assess the vulnerabilities in, and threats to, the network using the Threat Intelligence Modeling Environment (TIME) system. 

“TIME incorporates cyber-threat intelligence (CTI), vulnerability data, and computing asset data to determine what vulnerabilities are present on local network assets and score them according to their severity and likelihood of exploitation by threat actors,” said Lance Cameron, a student in the Master of Science in Cybersecurity Management (MSCM) program at the Fowler College of Business. “TIME would enable a security operator to quickly assess what vulnerabilities are present on their network, if any threat actors are known to exploit those vulnerabilities, and how severe an incident would be if that vulnerability is exploited. The result is intelligent network defense that can more effectively prevent breaches of security.”