CyberHusky participants from Houghton High School achieved their best-ever results in the 2025 Cyberpatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition.
Yu Cai, associate dean of Michigan Tech’s College of Computing, a professor of cybersecurity, and associate director for Michigan Tech’s Institute of Computing and Cybersystems, leads the CyberHusky program, which is offered at no charge to area students from middle and high school grades. The program, led by Michigan Tech professors and students, gives CyberHuskies the opportunity to experience cybersecurity and machine learning concepts and put them into practice. They then test their prowess in competitive state and national events.
Cai said the three teams from Houghton High School turned in impressive results this fall in the CyberPatriot event. “This is our best ranking since we began participating in the CyberPatriot competition in 2022,” he said.
The first team: Daniel Xie, Anna Wu, Samuel Cai, Gabe Hjerstedt, Edward Liu, and Jackson Brown, secured fourth place in Michigan’s Platinum tier.
The second team: Joshua You, Arobindo Ghosh, Roberto Marin, Zhitao Yap, Lewis Vendlinski, and Mihai Mihalca, earned 7th place in Michigan’s Platinum Tier. “This marks the first time our program has placed two teams in the Top 10 of Michigan’s Platinum Tier,” said Cai.
The third team: Maxwell Livesay, William Jiang, Sophia Wu, Alex Svanidze, Rounak Chatterjee, and Yaman Alshagarin, secured 12th place in Michigan’s Gold Tier. “This strong performance reflects the team’s technical proficiency and continued growth within a highly competitive field,” said Cai.
More Learning to Come in 2026
In the new year, CyberHuskies are diving into new projects under the theme “From Classroom to Community: AI-Assisted App Development for Community Engagement.” They’ll participate in the Presidential AI Challenge for K-12 students and the National Cyber League cybersecurity competition. They’ll learn more about networking, the Linux command line text interface to computers, hashing and encoding, log analysis, packet analysis, coding, and other topics related to artificial intelligence.
Regular weekly meetings are held from 7-8:30 p.m. on Saturday nights in Rehki Hall on the Michigan Tech campus. Students in grade eight or above who have previously taken at least one coding course are welcome—and can participate at any time. Get more details about the program and how to apply and reach out to Cai with any questions at cai@mtu.edu.
“I’ve been working on various cybersecurity and computing outreach programs for over 15 years. What I enjoy most about these programs is seeing kids grow and watching their curiosity turn into confidence as they learn, work together, and solve real problems,” said Cai. “The energy and enthusiasm they bring is incredibly rewarding. I’m also happy to serve the local community and help create meaningful opportunities that connect the university, students, and families in a positive and lasting way.”
About the College of Computing
The Michigan Tech College of Computing, established in 2019, is the first academic unit in Michigan dedicated solely to computing, and one of only a handful such academic units in the United States. The college is composed of two academic departments. The Computer Science department offers four bachelor of science programs in computer science, cybersecurity, data science, and software engineering; four master of science programs in applied computer science, computer science, cybersecurity, and data science; and a doctoral program in computer science. The Applied Computing department offers four bachelor of science programs in cybersecurity, electrical engineering technology, information technology, and mechatronics; two master of science programs in health informatics and mechatronics; and a doctoral program is in computational science and engineering.
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