2021 McMurtry Lecture – David Hozza

David Hozza, lecturer in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, will deliver a talk, "Things I've Learned on This Teaching Journey," during the George J. McMurtry Faculty Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award lecture at noon on Thursday, Nov. 11, in E202 Westgate Building. The lecture will also be livestreamed.

About the talk

"Making a career change later in life, from industry to higher education, has its challenges and rewards," said Hozza. "All the PowerPoint slides and learning theories couldn't prepare me for what I faced that first semester in the classroom. I quickly realized I needed help, and I was fortunate to have colleagues that offered advice and encouragement.

"In this talk, I will review the journey and highlight several of the learning activities I have found to be effective. Some of these activities include Gamification, Learn by Doing, and Flash Briefings. The overall result has been greater student engagement through their own exploration with little spoon feeding of information through lectures. I will also share my thoughts on course organization, a solid syllabus, and leveraging Canvas tools that made me more productive."

About the speaker

Before joining IST in 2017, Hozza worked for 30 years in the financial services and health care industries. While in industry, he held engineering and management roles in cybersecurity, data protection, cloud services and infrastructure. During his career at Penn State, he has developed and taught courses in the areas of cybersecurity, security and risk analysis (SRA), and Blockchain. He has created over 16 hands-on attack-defense cybersecurity labs for use in SRA and cybersecurity courses. He was awarded the Dean's Teaching Award for Excellence in 2019 and 2020.

His research interests are in the areas of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) and he was awarded a CSRE grant in 2021 to work with Penn State’s Applied Research Lab on developing a Cyber Hygiene scoring methodology for ARL's supply chain vendors.

Hozza has a master’s degree from Penn State in cyber security and information assurance, as well as a bachelor of science in computer science and management from East Stroudsburg University. He holds the CISSP designation as well as other industry technology certifications.

About the award

The George J. McMurtry Faculty Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award is named for the former associate dean of the College of Engineering who was instrumental in the founding of the College of IST. The award highlights recipients’ innovative teaching, commitment to learning and creative interface in the classroom or in online courses they teach.