University of North Texas 
A sociology professor at the University of North Texas is pioneering an interdisciplinary learning and research initiative focused on the intersection of human behavior and cybercrime.
“To me, everything in the world is sociology,” Principal Lecturer Helen Potts said. “Whether you're looking at cybercrime, cybersecurity or artificial intelligence, it reaches everybody.”
While Potts studied both sociology and criminology as an undergraduate, her interest in the social aspects of cybercrime came from speaking with her brother, Randy, who works as a chief information security officer.
Their conversations led to the founding of NEXUS, the Network for Exploring the Intersection of Humans and Cybercrime. The initiative is a collaboration between UNT’s Department of Sociology and CISO XC, a cybersecurity professional organization co-founded by Randy.
NEXUS is one of the few academic programs in the world that explores the intersection of sociology and cybercrime.
“I think one of the reasons why we've gotten such great interest in this, especially by corporate people and chief information security officers themselves, is because there's nobody really doing this,” Potts said. “There's nobody really looking at humans and human behavior in cybercrime and cybersecurity.”
Understanding the social aspect of cybercrime helps security professionals understand why attacks happen, which prepares them to both effectively respond to cybercrimes and prevent them from occurring. This includes training people to recognize social engineering in phishing emails and identify deepfake technology in fraud calls.
NEXUS aims to immerse students in this new work through classes, certifications, research conferences, internship opportunities and more.
“The interest is there, especially in undergrads who would like to pursue this pretty specific artificial intelligence-cybercrime-cybersecurity bundle,” Potts said.
NEXUS also engages students with scholarly interests not explicitly linked to cybercrime. This includes doctoral sociology student Natalia Heringer, who is studying gender-based violence.
In October 2025, Heringer was one of seven of Potts’ students who presented posters at a gathering of chief information security officers. She covered a case study about child exploitation on social media.
“The topics that we can work with are so broad,” Heringer said. “Anything that happens in society happens in the virtual world, so we can just think about cyberspaces as a mini-world.”
Potts’ new Cybercrime and Social Behavior course will be offered for the first time Spring 2026. The sociology class is open to students from any major.
The course will feature guest speakers, from law enforcement to hackers. Information security professionals from major corporations including Visa, Mastercard and United Airlines are interested in becoming involved with NEXUS and the course, Potts said.
Some of these guests will serve as mentors to students throughout the semester, assigned to advise small groups on class projects, extracurricular research and industry connections.
Participation in NEXUS’ first annual Cybercrime and Social Behavior Research Conference is also built into the course. Each student will develop a poster presentation for the April 2 event, gaining experience in both academic research and business etiquette.
“It’ll give students, especially undergrad students, a really rare opportunity to present research at a conference,” Potts said. “And then they’ll be talking with and rubbing elbows with information security personnel, law enforcement and hackers who will be at the conference, too.”
Abstract proposals for the conference are accepted until Feb. 1, 2026.
Another component of NEXUS includes a Cybercrime and Social Behavior certificate, first offered in the 2026-2027 undergraduate catalog.
The 12-hour interdisciplinary course of study explores topics including cryptocurrency, internet scams, AI, misinformation, hacking and cyberterrorism. It includes courses from UNT’s sociology, economics, technical communication and philosophy departments.
Potts said the certificate draws from various disciplines because “there's no bounds” to cyber technology and “no point to me to creating boundaries where boundaries shouldn't exist.”
NEXUS will also organize an internship program, placing interested students with community partners like the class mentors or their colleagues.
“Many students wait until they’ve graduated to start looking for internships and they miss those four years where this is what we’re working on,” Potts said. “So hopefully this can help.”