The University of South Florida has received a $30,000 research and development grant to support its Laboratory for Advancement of Crossdisciplinary Innovation (LACI) at the Sarasota-Manatee campus. The grant, which will assist in advancing cybersecurity research, came from Sarasota-based cybersecurity and digital forensics company Sylint Group Inc., headed by founding partner and chairman John Jorgensen.

Giti Javidi, a professor of information assurance and cybersecurity management, and information systems professor Ehsan Sheybani, both of the Muma College of Business, founded the lab earlier this year. The facility is equipped with an array of high-tech devices to help with research, including an MS Surface Hub interactive white board, personal computers, laptops, 3D printers, emotion-detection technologies, cybersecurity tools, brain wave and speech signal acquisition and analysis equipment, FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) and wireless communication technologies, virtual reality goggles, robots, drones and STEM educational toolkits. Funds from the Sylint Group will assist in hiring research scholars.