My educational career has been unique
and non-traditional. I started
kindergarten when I was four years
old, just meeting the deadline for
admission in that cohort. I
subsequently attended every school
type imaginable: public, private,
parochial, charter, and homeschool. I
graduated a year early, at sixteen
years of age, and joined the United
States Marine Corps three days after
my seventeenth birthday. Upon
completing basic training and primary
specialty training, I immediately
initiated a request to attend night
school using USMC tuition assistance
benefits. My immediate leadership
denied the request several times, but
I persisted and continued petitioning
the chain of command until I got
direct approval from the battalion
commander. I concurrently continuously
self-studied and ultimately earned
fifty-nine undergraduate credit hours
through non-traditional methods –
CLEPs, DSSTs, and military education.
I completed my Associate degree in
under two years and left active duty
at twenty years old, having finished
all but three classes toward my
undergraduate degree. When I left the
organization, nearly a third of the
junior enlisted personnel had enrolled
in classes. Immediately after
finishing my bachelor’s degree, I
attended graduate school on nights and
weekends while working a full-time
job, earning a Master of Science in
International Relations with a
concentration in National Security
Policy. Some years later, I also
leveraged my remaining GI Bill
benefits to complete another master’s
degree in Cybersecurity
Technology. I spent most of my
adult life overseas as a member of the
military and a civilian contractor
supporting the military mission. My
growth and advancement over my career
are largely due to the skills and
attributes that I was fortunate enough
to learn and develop in the
Marines. As the Cybersecurity
Architect for the Penn State Applied
research lab, I was involved in
countless enterprise initiatives and
over half a dozen separate research
projects. I care deeply about the
global importance and impact of our
research and development efforts. I’ve
also started collaboration efforts
across the university, creating the
Open-Source Program Office (OSPO)
working group and the cybersecurity
collaboration group. In addition, I’ve
just begun working on a proposal,
collaborating with several PSU
organizations (CSRE, ARL, IST, ITS,
and Libraries) to attempt to establish
our OSPO to make a world-class
open-source software center of
excellence. One intended focus of the
program office is to create reusable
standards and templates for
consumption and replicability across
academia. The program office would
also simplify the mechanism for
open-source software contribution
approvals, outreach, and coordination
throughout the university. As a
member FFRDC/UARC information security
working group, I've worked on some of
the most complex security challenges
in the Department of Defense and the
Defense Industrial Base. I am also an
active member of several other
professional organizations, including
(ISC)2, the New England Complex
Systems Institute, the Association of
Old Crows, and the Military
Cyber Professionals
Organization. I also regularly attend
and participate in cybersecurity
conferences, including DEF CON,
Security Congress, InfoWarCon, and
HammerCon.