College of Graduate Studies

Coming Full Circle
College of Graduate Studies Alumna Attributes Wernher von Braun to Success

Written by Richard Faylor

“I’m definitely an Idaho product,” says Barbara Endicott-Popovsky. “I went there because it had one of the country’s first centers of academic excellence in the field of Information Assurance. I wanted to study with the best.”

Today Endicott-Popovsky is a nationally recognized leader in the effort to protect and defend information systems. She is the director, lead instructor and program developer of the University of Washington’s National Security Agency (NSA) Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education.

According to Endicott-Popovsky, cyber crime is a much bigger problem than people imagine. “The Internet wasn’t designed to be a commercial entity,” she says, “so it doesn’t have the built-in accountability, security and safety it should have for the kind of transactions we’re conducting. That’s what allows organized crime operating through the Internet to take almost twice the revenue out of our economic system that is generated legitimately through Internet commerce. The losses are being absorbed by banking organizations and big corporations and they’re in turn passing them on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices.”

Fortunately, says Endicott-Popovsky, “We’re finally seeing the government focus on the problem. And that’s translating into substantial increases in research funding.”

To be effective, IA requires expertise in multiple fields—fraud examination, forensic science, military science, management science, systems engineering, security engineering, and criminology, in addition to computer science. Thanks to its cutting-edge interdisciplinary approach, the University of Idaho’s College of Graduate Students has become a leader in IA by allowing students to study an unusually wide range of inter-related subjects.

The University of Idaho’s outstanding Outreach Program also played a major role in Endicott-Popovsky’s success. “Thank god I was able to study at a distance,” says Endicott-Popovsky, who gained her doctorate while working in Seattle. “Idaho is a very unusual university in that regard.”

But there’s a bit more to the story. When Endicott-Popovsky was 10 years old, German émigré Wernher von Braun was stirring the nation’s imagination by spearheading a new program that promised to put satellites and astronauts in outer space and eventually reach the moon.

“I became incredibly interested in science because of Wernher von Braun,” says Endicott-Popovsky. “I was avid. I would look forward all year to the next science fair. So imagine my excitement when I won the science fair in Pittsburgh and Wernher von Braun made the presentation at the planetarium! The prize was a bag of 25 silver dollars—a fortune at that time! In front of a huge crowd that included my parents, I walked up on stage to shake hands with Wernher von Braun and receive the prize. I can’t tell you what a big deal that was. I got to meet the guy who was leading the space program! I immediately joined the junior amateur astronomers organization. I made my own telescope. I would spend my winter nights at the Pittsburgh observatory. And I’ve been in science ever since. It was just like the movie ‘October Sky.’ I was one of those kids who just fell in love with science.”

Decades later it was time for Endicott-Popovsky to walk up on another stage and receive another cherished prize—her doctorate degree from the University of Idaho. And guess who was making the presentation? Wernher von Braun’s daughter Margrit, dean of the College of Graduate Studies.

“It was really special,” says Endicott-Popovsky. “To think that I had met Wernher von Braun when I was a child and the tremendous impact that had on my life. And then to have my doctoral degree handed to me by his daughter. It’s like my whole life came full circle. I still can’t believe it!”