Boyang Wang

It would be unfair to say Boyang Wang, one of Utah State University’s Presidential Doctoral Research Fellows, has his head in the clouds; rather, he has his head in the cloud.

Wang, a computer science student who is researching the encryption and outsourcing of data and computations on the cloud—services and software that run on the Internet instead of a computer—said that security and privacy is a bigger need and concern now than ever.

“The cloud contains a lot of vulnerabilities, and it’s so hard to contain against all of them,” Wang said. “Unfortunately, there will always be hackers trying to hack into the cloud, looking for sensitive information to sell or disseminate into society to cause a negative impact.”

“I decided to come to USU because of its good reputation as a research institution, and because I found a faculty member I was really excited to work with.”