Cyber Security Programs from Schank Academy

Founder & Faculty

Roger Schank, PhD

Founder and CEO

Roger Schank. Ph.D., is the Chairman and CEO of Schank Academy, a company that delivers Story-Centered Curricula to businesses and schools. He is also the Executive Director and founder of Engines for Education.

Previously, Dr. Schank was the Chief Education Officer of Carnegie Mellon's West Coast campus, where he introduced the idea of master's degrees that use a Story-Centered Curriculum in lieu of the traditional course-centered approach. He was the founder of Cognitive Arts and the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University where he was John Evans Professor of Computer Science, Education, and Psychology, (now Professor Emeritus).

Prior to coming to Northwestern University, Dr. Schank was Professor of Computer Science and Psychology at Yale University and Director of the Yale Artificial Intelligence Project. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Paris VII, a faculty member at Stanford University, and research fellow at the Institute for Semantics and Cognition in Switzerland.

Dr. Schank is a fellow of the AAAI, the founder of the Cognitive Science Society, and co-founder of the Journal of Cognitive Science. He holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Texas. One of the world's leading Artificial Intelligence researchers, Dr. Schank is the author of more than 125 articles and publications.

Ray Bareiss

Senior Vice President

Ray Bareiss, Ph.D., is a Senior Vice President at Schank Academy. Before joining us, Dr. Bareiss was Director of Educational Programs and Professor of the Practice of Software Engineering and Software Management at Carnegie Mellon's Silicon Valley Campus, where he oversaw and taught in two unique, learning-by-doing, professional master's programs. He was a co-founder of Cognitive Arts Corporation and served as executive vice president for strategic projects, such as virtual university collaborations and large-scale corporate eLearning initiatives. Prior to joining Cognitive Arts, Dr. Bareiss was Assistant Director of the Institute for the Learning Sciences at Northwestern University, as well as a Research Associate Professor of Computer Science and Education. Dr. Bareiss specializes in computer-based learning environments, organizational memory and computer-based performance support, new product development, human-computer interaction, and cased-based reasoning. He is also the author of a number of books and articles. Dr. Bareiss holds a Ph.D. in Computer Sciences and a B.S. in Communication from the University of Texas at Austin.

Wendy Lehnert

Senior Mentor

Wendy Lehnert holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Yale University and an MA in Mathematics from Yeshiva University. She was an Assistant Professor at Yale with a joint appointment in Computer Science and Psychology, where she specialized in natural language processing and cognitive models of human thought and memory. She later joined the Department of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she continued her work in cognitive modeling. Professor Lehnert's early work on language processing and later work on information extraction from text was (has been) widely recognized and honored. She received the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and was also an elected Fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. She has served on scientific advisory boards for the National Science Foundation and the National Library of Medicine, and was as an active member of the Information Science and Technology Committee for the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense. Professor Lehnert left academia in 2011 and joined Socratic Arts where she is currently working in the area of computer and information security.

Learning how to network is a part of the program!

Professional positions in cybersecurity, though abundant, are relatively new and an established and trusted credentialing system to help employers identify talent and confirm proficiency simply does not exist. For this reason, a certificate or degree is not the first thing a recruiter looks for when filling a position in Cybersecurity. Instead, most positions are filled through referrals and recommendations. This means that networking is the most important aspect of your job search in the field.

As part of each Cyber Security Programs, our mentors and program directors introduce students to a network of key Cyber/Information Security professionals through conferences, online communities, events and other activities. Our goal is to help you find employment within 6 months of completing any of our Cyber/Information Security programs.