UTEP Cybersecurity Clinic Completes First Year of Free Services for Community

Engineering student cohort now serving El Paso organizations

EL PASO, Texas (Jan. 30, 2026) – The University of Texas at El Paso’s Miners Cybersecurity Clinic has reached a major milestone, completing the first year of students delivering free cybersecurity services to local El Paso organizations.

John Wiebe, Ph.D. (left), UTEP provost and vice president for academic affairs, and Monika Akbar, Ph.D. (right), faculty lead and director of the Miners Cybersecurity Clinic, presented a framed photo of the clinic’s inaugural cohort to Paige Godvin (center), a security consultant for Google, during a press conference on Jan. 30, 2026, on the UTEP campus to celebrate the completion of the clinic’s first full operational cycle. The Miners Cybersecurity Clinic was established in 2024 through $1 million in funding from Google’s Cybersecurity Clinics Fund.

The completion of the clinic’s first full operational cycle, with an inaugural cohort of nine College of Engineering students, represents a significant step toward the clinic’s goal of training more than 100 students and assisting nearly 30 community organizations by 2030.

Established in 2024 through $1 million in funding from Google’s Cybersecurity Clinics Fund, the Miners Cybersecurity Clinic connects learning with hands-on practice to strengthen the readiness of local organizations for cybersecurity threats, including some that often lack the resources to address growing digital concerns. Through this first cycle, students completed specialized training and are now delivering cybersecurity risk assessments, policy reviews and actionable recommendations to participating local entities at no cost.

“This milestone represents exactly what the Miners Cybersecurity Clinic was designed to do – prepare our students for real-world cybersecurity careers while directly serving our community,” said Monika Akbar, Ph.D., faculty lead and director of the…

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