Tuscaloosa, Alabama, US (Hybrid)1 open job
The University of Alabama is an R1 public research university in Tuscaloosa with 42,000+ students, 200+ degree programs across 13 colleges, and research spanning cybersecurity, AI, data science, life sciences, and water resources.
The University of Alabama - the Capstone - is Alabama's flagship public research university and the state's oldest and largest public institution of higher education, founded in 1831 in Tuscaloosa. It operates as a Carnegie Foundation R1 research institution with more than 200 degree programs across 13 colleges and schools, and it is among the nation's fastest-growing flagship universities. Cybersecurity sits alongside transportation research, water resources, life sciences, data science, and artificial intelligence in its technical domains, at a moment when the university reports all-time highs in sponsored research awards.
The threat model here is the classic academic one: an open, federated environment serving over 42,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students, plus faculty and staff, with a population drawn from every Alabama county, all 50 states, and 100 countries. That means a large, transient user base, heavy device diversity, research data spanning life sciences to transportation infrastructure, and the constant tension between academic openness and institutional risk. Defending that perimeter is not a single-product problem - it is identity, endpoint, network segmentation, and research data protection at once.
The university's scope covers nationally ranked programs in law, nursing, business, engineering, and communication, which means security work touches clinical, legal, financial, and research systems with different compliance obligations and different stakes. Sustained growth in enrollment and sponsored research raises the baseline: more grants, more data, more collaborators, more credentials to govern.
Environmentally, The University of Alabama is recognized by Forbes as one of America's Best Employers for Company Culture. Its stated heritage rests on academic excellence, student and faculty accomplishment, athletic achievement, and alumni pride, and its track record includes Rhodes, Goldwater, and Truman Scholars and Fulbright recipients. More at https://ua.edu/.
