SANTA BARBARA, CA — 27 Feb 2026 — The NSF AI Institute for Agent-based Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operation (ACTION) at UC Santa Barbara is proud to announce that 2025 Summer Intern Anoushka Sawant has been awarded a prestigious fellowship with the National Community College Cybersecurity (NCyTE) Center.
The NCyTE Fellowship Program, funded by the National Science Foundation, is a highly competitive initiative designed to identify future leaders in cybersecurity education. As a fellow, Anoushka will undergo rigorous training in classroom pedagogy, earn the Microsoft Certified Educator (MCE) certification, and participate in a specialized Fellowship Bootcamp at Moraine Valley Community College. The program culminates in a teaching assignment, where she will help train the next generation of the cybersecurity workforce.
Anoushka’s selection aligns perfectly with the ACTION Institute’s mission to change the way mission-critical systems are protected, especially with our educational goals. The fellowship will allow Anoushka to bridge the gap between high-level AI research and foundational cybersecurity instruction.
This opportunity allows Anoushka to take the advanced AI concepts she learned with ACTION and during her MS at San Jose State University and apply them to the essential task of educating future cybersecurity professionals.
Her project from Summer 2025 was titled "HALLUCINATOR: Measuring the Susceptibility of LLMs to Falsehoods via Adversarial Prompting." She was mentored by Dr. Yigitcan Kaya, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Santa Barbara.
About the NCyTE Center:
The National Community College Cybersecurity (NCyTE) Center is a resource center funded by the National Science Foundation. Its mission is to increase the quantity and quality of cybersecurity graduates through community colleges, ensuring a robust pipeline of talent for the nation’s cybersecurity workforce.