Authored by William and Mary | October 20, 2025
View original article here.
Editor’s Note: As a national workforce initiative dedicated to preparing the next generation of cyber and electromagnetic spectrum professionals, the VICEROY Initiative is proud to highlight William & Mary’s summer cybersecurity experience featured in the article below. The program reflects VICEROY’s core mission: pairing academic excellence with hands-on, mission-focused training that builds technical competence, judgment, and readiness for real-world challenges. By exposing students to operational environments and the expectations of today’s defense landscape, William & Mary is helping strengthen the cyber talent pipeline our nation depends on. The commitment demonstrated by faculty, mentors, and students exemplifies the spirit of service-centered science and the future-ready workforce VICEROY is designed to cultivate.
This wasn’t your typical game of capture the flag.
The version that Camden Good ’26 and Atticus Nafziger ’26 participated in this summer included a series of challenges involving cybersecurity knowledge and skills. In the end, the two William & Mary computer science majors placed in the top 10 out of all participants, including experts from the defense and private sectors.
“This gave me a lot of confidence that I actually belonged to this group of soldiers and professionals,” said Nafziger.
The game was part of Cyber Fortress, a two-week exercise hosted by the Virginia National Guard at the Virginia Beach State Military Reservation in August. Led by Computer Science Professor Matthew Chapman, Good and Nafziger were two of three William & Mary students to participate with a goal of helping make the nation’s cyber critical infrastructure safer…
Read full article here.
Image: Supported by the Whole of Government Center of Excellence, the first cohort of William & Mary VICEROY Scholars completed their cyber internships at the U.S. Air Force’s Air Combat Command in Hampton, Virginia, from June until August, with nine students coming in from the mathematics, computer science and data science departments. (Air Combat Command photo)