April 15, 2021
The Honors College Announces the Winner of the 2021 Gordon Prize in Managing Cybersecurity Resources
The University of Maryland Honors College has selected Emily Jean Dunham ‘21 the 2021 Gordon Prize in Managing Cybersecurity Resources.
Dunham is a senior Computer Engineering major and Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES) minor from Hanover, MD who also earned her citation from the ACES living-learning honors program.
Established in 2008 by Lawrence A. Gordon, Ph.D., the EY Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting and Information Assurance in the Robert H. Smith School of Business, the Gordon prize recognizes the best essay on the topic of managing cybersecurity resources from a managerial accounting and/or economics perspective. Dr. Gordon is a faculty member in the Honors College Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES) program and co-established the Gordon-Loeb model.
The Gordon Prize recipient was selected by Dr. Lei Zhou and Dr. Martin Loeb, both faculty in the Robert H. Smith School of Business, who noted: “The winning essay lucidly highlights the substantial difficulties faced by firms in determining how much to spend on cybersecurity and integrates approaches to the problem put forth in the practitioner literature. The essay provides a welcome starting place for managers in approaching a problem of increasing importance, not only to a firm’s owners, but to a wide range of stakeholders (e.g., customers, employees, and society in general).”
Dunham has held a cybersecurity internship every summer as a student and after graduation plans to work in the field as a computer engineer.
“Cybersecurity is such an important part of today's world,” she said. “And in writing this essay I learned more about how to create a customized plan for a specific company or organization.”
Dunham is an accomplished student who received a Scholarship for Service grant from the National Science Foundation and won a National Center for Women and Information Technology Award. While a student at Maryland, she volunteered her time as a member of the Honors College Student Advisory Board and as a puppy raiser for the Guide Dog Foundation.
Dunham was recognized with other recent Honors College award and prize winners during the 2021 Honors College Citation Ceremony on April 15.
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About the Honors College: The Honors College is home to the University of Maryland’s highly acclaimed living-learning programs for students with exceptional academic talents. Living-Learning programs range from two-year programs like the multidisciplinary University Honors (UH) to the more focused Design Cultures & Creativity (DCC), Honors Humanities (HH), Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students (ACES) and Integrated Life Sciences (ILS), to the multidisciplinary four-year research program - Gemstone (GEMS). Honors students have exclusive access to special honors versions of traditional classes ("H-versions") hosted by academic departments and the opportunity to join upper-level departmental honors programs in their major discipline of study.
About the Gordon Prize
The Gordon Prize in Managing Cybersecurity Resources is open to all students in good standing in the Honors College (LLPs and Departmental Honors). It is an endowed award established with the generous donation of Dr. Lawrence A. Gordon, professor in the Robert H. Smith School of Business.
