Lynn’s College of Business and Management embraces a new era of technology

While earning his Ph.D., he arrived at a fork in the road: An opportunity presented itself for a visiting professor to teach at St. Thomas University, and suddenly, Antoniou found himself traveling between New York and Florida to teach graduate studies on weekends.

“It changed the trajectory of my life,” said Antoniou. “I loved research and teaching and knew I wanted to contribute back to society in a different way.” 

When the position for a full-time associate professor opened at Lynn—just as the cybersecurity management and data analytics undergraduate programs were beginning—Antoniou jumped at the opportunity. He recalls when he and Ingles had five students to teach. Now, after nearly five years, there are approximately 80 to 100 students in Lynn’s cybersecurity and data analytics classes.

“I want to leave my mark and expose students to all I’ve learned,” said Antoniou. “I teach my students in a vast majority of cybersecurity areas, from policymaking, standards, regulations, digital forensics, governance risk compliance, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, networking, cloud computing to about the dark web—all the underground things going on, from human trafficking and cryptocurrency to phishing, viruses, and how to understand reality versus deepfake. We want students who are well-rounded. Lynn’s unique program gives them those skills.”

At a time when cybersecurity is in higher demand than ever before and AI is on the rise, Antoniou recognizes his unique position by bringing in powerful industry leaders to conduct classroom presentations and taking students to cybersecurity conferences and competitions across Florida.

In addition to being the full-time program coordinator for cybersecurity at Lynn, Antoniou is working on a patent that will help identify and access management for higher encryption standards. Furthermore, Antoniou was selected as a Fulbright Scholar for 2024–25 for Albania. The Fulbright Scholar Awards are highly competitive fellowships that allow scholars to teach and research in other countries, helping build international collaborations, research and improve global understanding.