Research conducted by two Chanticleer Intelligence Brief (CIB) analysts features in a peer-reviewed scholarly volume published by the University of North Carolina. Sarah Harvey was part of the first Executive Team that founded the CIB in 2015. In 2016, she continued to serve in the organization as an analyst in the Americas Section, specializing in Venezuela. Diana Evans was the CIB’s Communications Officer in 2016, while also serving as head of the club’s Americas Section.

Harvey (left) and Evans

In the spring of 2016, the two CIB analysts researched the political impact caused by the large data-breach suffered recently by the United States Office of Personnel Management, which has been widely blamed on China. They presented their preliminary research findings at the annual conference of the South Carolina Political Science Association at Winthrop University in March of that year. A month later, they presented their finished research at the 30th annual National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) in Asheville, NC. In early June, Harvey and Evans were officially notified that NCUR had selected their paper for inclusion in the official Proceedings of the 30th National Conference on Undergraduate Research. The paper has now been published by the University of North Carolina. The Proceedings include the best peer-reviewed papers presented at the NCUR conference last April.

Harvey and Evans’ research project was supervised by CIB faculty mentor Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis. The two students completed their degrees in Intelligence and National Security Studies at CCU in May 2016. Their published paper is entitled “Defending Against Cyber Espionage: The US Office of Personnel Management Hack as a Case Study in Information Assurance”. Harvey and Evans’ research is also featured on the website of the American Political Science Association.