Research presentations, cyber debates podcasts and a capture the flag cybersecurity challenge were a just a few of the events students from USF鈥檚 Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing were able to experience at CyberBay 2025.
The inaugural conference combines technology, academic, government and military sectors in a shared mission that promotes the Tampa Bay area as a national hub of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and national security.
Dayne Guy, a graduate student in the Bellini College, attended the conference to present his poster that focused on training large language models to recognize certain types of obscure or figurative language. And while the focus of his graduate studies is in AI technology, he was happy to network with his cyber security colleagues and learn from them through the different seminars and speaking engagements.
鈥淚'm an AI student but it's been very cybersecurity focused, which I appreciate because I don't really get to see much cybersecurity in my day-to-day classes that are more computing and AI,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 also like hearing from the different speeches, the keynotes. There are some great takeaways from this, and you're also learning about a lot of interesting research.鈥�
CyberHerd Competes in CTF Challenge
In the closing minutes of the Capture the Flag challenge at CyberBay 2025, CyberHerd member Jun Lu was crouched on the floor of the conference鈥檚 vendor hall working on the last of his assignments for his team.
Lu, who is a relative newcomer to the team, which was founded in 2023, was focused on one of the tasks in the competition, which included a jeopardy-style capture the flag event. Teams competing in the event attempted to solve challenges that covered a variety of cybersecurity categories and topics. The flag in this case appears as a specific line of code.
鈥淩ight now, I have two jobs I鈥檓 juggling,鈥� he said while combing through code on his computer in the final 30 minutes of the competition. 鈥淏asically, in this network, if you connect to it, there鈥檚 a client. I'm not sure what the exact IP is. It's going to transmit a message to this. So, the idea is that you're supposed to spoof the IP of it, and also set up something called a MITM (man-in-the-middle attack) proxy. It鈥檚 a tool. The problem is that I am trying to off memory on how to set this up because I haven't done this myself before.鈥�
USF鈥檚 CyberHerd had multiple teams competing at CyberBay 2025. Ultimately, the Squid Proxy Lovers team, which included members from several universities won the competition and $20,000 grand prize. The runners up included the UCF Knighsec B Team and U.S. Air Force Academy.
Nathan Leung, another USF CyberHerd member who is majoring in cybersecurity, said when approaching a CTF competition, a good strategy involves splitting your tasks in the competition based on your expertise.
鈥淭hat's the best bet,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hen you have a team of four different skillsets. You鈥檙e just figuring out who does what the best and it varies by person. Like, for me, I'm into open-source intelligence and forensics. I definitely think I do that the best.鈥�
Cyber Debaters Tackle Pressing Topics
Teams of students from the Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity
and Computing huddled around conference tables, notes for their arguments in hand,
ready to debate opposing teams on contemporary topics in AI and cybersecurity.
The debate pitted the students against each other in a timed format where they shared
their arguments on a topic, questioned, rebutted and then evaluated by a panel of
judges.
The topics: Effective use of methods in teaching ethical hacking techniques or whether universities should prohibit the use of generative AI tools. They were selected by Sriram Chellappan, a professor in the Bellini College who organized the debate.
鈥淟ooking at the whole experience, I think it was great,鈥� said Michael Maldonado Cruz, a USF student who was one of the debaters. 鈥淚t forces you to get out of your comfort zone. It鈥檚 a lot of fun coming out here, engaging in your communication skills and your ability to drive a point to convince an audience on a point you might not necessarily agree with.鈥�
Cruz, who argued against the prohibition of the use of genAI tools, such as ChatGPT, in academic writing. The audience also voted him the MVD 鈥� Most Valuable Debater.
Chellappan worked with an outside company to help prepare the students and judges for the competition. They helped educate the students on the format for the timed debates, worked to train the judges and coached Chellappan on how to moderate. The students were provided the topics ahead of the event to allow for data research and the formation of closing arguments.
They didn鈥檛 know what questions would come from the audience or the judges, which factored into their final scores.
鈥淚 really think we need this type of events as computing professionals,鈥� said Miguel Mateo Osorio Vela, a USF student majoring in computer science. 鈥淚t got me to learn so many things about cybersecurity. With my topic, I just started asking some other professionals to guide me, and I did some networking through that. It challenged me to convince my audience of what I think is correct. But I need to I need to sustain my arguments with evidence, and I think that was the most important thing that I learned through the coaching sessions.鈥�
Mateo added, 鈥淭his was my first time doing a formal debate like this and hoping is not the last one.鈥�
Student Research Showcase
USF student research also highlighted the three days of the conference, with students and faculty providing presentations throughout the conference, along with others presenting scholarly research posters.
They spoke on topics that included redesigning generative AI to support children鈥檚 STEM-based writing, event segmentation models, 3D-based imaging analysis and research challenges in cybersecurity.
Scholarly poster topics included finding the right demographic mix for human alignment in large language models, improving security for in-vehicle networks and using LLMs for grammar-based parsing.
鈥淚 was able to talk to so many people from my industry,鈥� said Long Dang, who presented his scholarly poster on an AI-based solution for autonomous vehicles. 鈥淚 like to go around and challenge them on their claims, but in a good way. Also, getting around to talk to other professors and what they are doing in their research is great and I get to talk to them about what they are working on. I want to become a researcher like that.鈥�
The inaugural event concluded Wednesday and a second is planned for spring 2026.