image of Hawnne Park and Rachel Bleiman side by side
L) Hwanhee Park and R) Rachel Bleiman

Two papers, co-authored by Criminal Justice PhD students, Hwanhee Park and Rachel Bleiman, have been accepted as peer-reviewed conference proceedings at the 15th IEEE Integrated STEM Education Conference (ISEC), which will be held at Princeton University on March 15, 2025.

"Behavioral and Psychological Aspects of Employment and Tax Scams via a Social Engineering Competition" is Hwanhee's first-authored paper and Rachel is a co-author, presents findings from the 2024 Employment and Tax Scam Social Engineering Competition, exploring how students analyzed real-world scams using frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK and the NIST Phish Scale. It sheds light on psychological persuasion techniques used in scams and how students explored the victimization process.

"Manipulating Minds with Machines: A Cybersecurity Course Project on AI-Driven Social Engineering Attacks" is co-authored by Rachel Bleiman, and details a hands-on cybersecurity education project where students simulated AI-enhanced social engineering attacks in a controlled environment. The research underscores the need for experiential learning in cybersecurity to understand the psychological and technological dimensions of AI-driven threats. This paper also includes contributions from Micah Featherson (Klein undergrad) and Jacqueline Swope (Psychology undergrad).