Jesse Varsalone

Jesse Varsalone is currently an Associate Professor of Cybersecurity Technology and the Cyber Team Coach at University of Maryland University Global Campus. He believes in the institution and thinks they are the top choice in the nation for members of the US military, their spouses, and working adult learners, those working in the field or career changers. He has the pleasure of working under top notch supervisors at UMGC, including Dr. Jimmy Robertson, Dr. Helen Barker, and Dr. Patrick Appiah-Kubi. Jesse has one of the most diverse teaching backgrounds of any person ever to step into the classroom. He first taught middle school in 1994 in his college internship. He then got his first job (via US mail, no phone call) at Baltimore City Public Schools where he successfully taught many amazing students for his 5 year tenure at BCPS. Jesse was not just a teacher, he was a coach for the wrestling, swimming, and football teams. He will never forget the mentors like Terry Leverett and Fred Bullock that mentored him during his entry into the teaching field, or the excellent students that motivated him to stay in the profession. In his third year teaching at Southwestern High School (now closed), he started teaching math, including Algebra, and Math for Elementary Majors I+II, at Coppin State College (an HBCU which is now Coppin State University), thanks to the dean who took a chance on him as a adjunct. It is important to note that Jesse never took a summer off back then or in his 30+ years of teaching, working multiple summer jobs day and night to make ends meet. In his 1st year of teaching in 1995, he made about 25,000 with part time jobs and a Master's + 60. Jesse moved on to Baltimore County Public Schools in the fall of 1999. He taught at Chesapeake High School in Baltimore County for 3 years. He was also a JV football and Wrestling coach, thanks to the opportunities give to him by Rod McMillion (BCPS Board Member at Elected District 7). During his employment at Baltimore County Public Schools, he received a call from UMBC, which he thought was a solicitation. Instead it was an offer to train him to become a A+, Net+, and MCSE instructor at their for-profit and non-credit teaching endeavor. Jesse needed to train and work this 'gig' at nights and on the weekends and that is when he became A+, Net+, iNet+, MCSE 2000 certified. There were so many talented teachers along the way that helped him learn his craft, especially Scott Booth (Microsoft) and David Morgan. The UMGC Training Center became Towson Training Center (around 2000, security Blvd) and Jesse left there to go to the Computer Career Institute at Johns Hopkins University, another for-profit and non-credit teaching job. UMBC, Towson, and JHU were still night and summer jobs for Jesse as he was still teaching at Baltimore County Public Schools. Jesse moved into a full-time teaching job at the Computer Career Institute at Johns Hopkins University were he was the director of MCSE and other programs for many years. This was a 5-day a week non-credit program. During this face-to-face instruction period, Jesse taught A+, Net+, Security+, and the entire MCSE track. He had many excellent dedicated students who are working in the field of cyber. For just about all of the 5 years that Jesse was at the Computer Career Institute at Johns Hopkins University, he taught both night classes. One ran on M+W and every other Saturday and the other ran on T+TH and every other Saturday. After 5 years, and kind of being exhausted from working 60 hours+ a week, Jesse moved to Villa Julie College which then became Stevenson University. Jesse only stayed at Villa Julie (now Stevenson University) for 1 year. His lifelong dream was to be a college professor, and although achieved, his wife at the time, Kim, wanted to be a stay at home mom. In order to pull this off, Jesse needed to leave Academia and get a much higher paying job. Leaving academia for a while turned out to be the most important and pivotal decision Jesse ever made, and really he would never have the knowledge of Cybersecurity he does today without working for the Department of Defense as a contractor. The credit for this decision mostly lies with Steven Windsor, owner of Maddrix, pretty much the top IR and forensics firm in the world. Jesse was working for (now defunct) Computer Science Corporation as a DoD contractor for 5 years at the Defense Cyber Investigations Training Academy (DCITA) where he taught courses as a Forensics and Intrusions in a Windows Environment, Network Exploitation Techniques, and Live Network Investigations, and many other courses with some of the smartest people he ever met, including Steven Bolt (also UMGC). While at DCITA, Jesse started teaching online at Champlain College in Burlington Vermont around 2007. (Thanks to Garry Kessler for the opportunity). Online teaching was 'newer' then and Jesse continued to teach online for them until he went to UMGC full-time in 2015, receiving several awards for outstanding teaching. Jesse also heard that several of his colleagues were teaching at UMUC, and he applied and Jeff Tjiputra and S Bhaskar (two excellent mentors) brought him on as an adjunct. He began teaching for them part-time in 2011 and full-time in 2015. While teaching training classes at the DC3 Cyber Crime Conference, one of the students, Michael Robinson (Google, UMGC) was in his class and suggested he come back to teach in the grad program at Stevenson University (Villa Julie College when he last worked there). He taught several grad classes there until fall 2015. Jesse longed for going back into academia and when he left the Defense Cyber Investigations Training Academy (DCITA) he went to the Community College of Baltimore County where he graduated from. This was mostly due to Casey O'Brien (long time Cyberwatch Co-Principal and Director) recruiting him to come there. Jesse really loved teaching face-to-face and enjoyed the students, their personalities, and the computer labs. Jesse also was able to teach high school seniors at Sollers Point Technical High thought CCBC. (Thanks to the then Principal Mike Weglein). During the summers, Jesse was able to train faculty from around the country in Ethical Hacking, Security+, Forensics, and Network Security for Moraine Valley Community College online and face-to-face in San Diego, Orlando, and at the University of South Alabama. The opportunity for Jesse to teach faculty was provided by John Sands and Eric Spengler (Moraine Valley Community College), and they are two of the top grant writers and professors in the world. Jesse went through a divorce ~ 2015 and needed a change even though he really loved teaching at CCBC. He initially went to teach for the (now defunct) Art of Exploitation University and then became a contractor and a full time-author until October 2015. During this time frame, he still continued to be an adjunct for Champlain College, UMUC (now UMGC), and Stevenson University. In the summers of 2013-2019, Jesse taught a one-week cyber boot camp for high school juniors from all over the country at the University of Maryland College Park thanks to Davina Pruitt-Mentle (NIST) of Cyberwatch. In the fall of 2015, after the startup that Jesse was working for as a full-time author and Lab writer went under, Jesse found his permanent home at University of Maryland Global Campus (then UMUC). Jesse has been able to work with some of the top cyber students in the world, including Chris Haller, UMGC graduate, National Cyber League first place finisher(out of 6001 students), and Navy veteran who he met at Capture the flag competitions he ran on the bases at Norfolk and Langley in the UMGC classrooms on base. Jesse also does an extensive amount of outreach for the University and has run Cyber competitions on military bases including Andrews, Langley, Norfolk, and Miramar, all sites where UMGC teaches classes. Jesse has also run the Cyber Maryland Competitions for High Schools, Community Colleges, and Universities, and ran the 2-year College Cyber Defense Competition (2CDC) in 2024 as well as the Montgomery Community College Competition in 2019. Jesse holds several certifications in the IT field, including A+, Arduino, CASP+, CEH, CISSP, Cloud+, CTT+, CYSA+, iNet+, Linux+, Net+, Pentest+, Security+, Server+ . He passed his first certification exam in 2000 and his last one in 2023. Jesse has spoken at several conferences including many of the DoD Cyber Crime Conferences. He was a member of the Red Team for several years on the Mid-Atlantic College Cyber Defense Competition. He has a master's degree from the University of South Florida (Tampa, FL), and a bachelors from George Mason University (Fairfax VA). Jesse has written and contributed to several publications, including Defense against the Black Arts: How Hackers Do What They Do and How to Protect against It by. Jesse also wrote the entire series of labs for Security+, Ethical Hacking, Forensics, and Network Security for NDG's netlab. He has ran the Cyber Maryland competition in 2021 and 2023, and ran the 2-year College Cyber Defense Competition (2CDC) in 2024. Jesse lives with his sons Mason and Levi, and daughter Kayla in Ellicott City Maryland in Howard County Maryland.