The π thons’ Khensa Rahman, Braedyn Hill and Hayden Monday attend the
ribbon cutting for NASA’s Katherine Johnson IV&V Facility in Fairmont, WV.
Photo by Natalie Sal.
Hill and Ibrahim Rahman. The students trained at least twice a
week from September to February for the March competition.
“We are very fortunate to have a supportive school admin-
istration at MLA,” says Mohammed. “We also utilized our
community resources, like valuable coach training from West
Virginia’s NASA Independent Verification & Validation Edu-
cator Resource Center, our world-ranking Mountaineer Area
RoboticS high school team members and several team parents
with IT and team building training. It’s most certainly a com-
munity effort to bring great programs like this to the state.”
Mohammed believes training like the cyber defense com-
petition is important for students. With the billions of data
breaches in the world, public cyber education and training
helps reduce these breaches and protects society.
“We have breaches that access sensitive code that directs the
pathways of rockets, planes and cars or impacts hospitals by
exposing personal data and shutting down power to surgical
equipment,” she says. “Training students in middle and high
school will help feed employees into jobs. West Virginia could be
a cyber security hub and expand our state’s profile and economy.”
Not only did the competition expose the students to careers,
but it also showed young adults that technology is more than
entertainment.
“It was amazing coaching and watching these kids discover
a world of computing that goes past games and documents,”
says Monday. “I don’t think any of them will look at computers
or the internet the same after this experience.”
Hutchinson, the first WInC president; and Stacy Cossin, the
vice president, in leading the recently formed group.
“Women in Cyber was just formed in the spring 2019
semester, so we’re still very much in the early stages,” says
Sammons. “One of the challenges is just getting the word out
to the female students here at the university. They’ve done an
excellent job with the limited amount of time they had. We plan
to begin recruiting again as soon as school starts in the fall.”
Together, the group’s leaders aim to increase the number
of females in cyber security jobs. So far there are 10 students
in the group.
“Women are woefully underrepresented in the technology
workforce,” says Sammons. “One recent survey put that number
at around 24 percent. Our objective with this group is to do
our part to increase that number, and my hope is this group
will have an impact well beyond our program and university.”
He also wants to make sure females realize a career in this
field is within reach and that women do very well in this course
of study at Marshall. In addition, the group is determined to
serve as a support system for women in technology programs,
helping boost their confidence while recruiting more females
to careers in the cyber and tech world.
“My goal for this group is to make sure that no woman in this
group will ever feel left behind or that she’s not represented,”
says Cossin. “It has been said that you can’t be what you can’t
see, and I am determined to make us be seen.”
Together, WInC and MLA have one goal that unites them in
their technology efforts: they both want to see West Virginia
benefit from the students, training and work.
“There is a tremendous effort to bring cyber security jobs
to West Virginia,” says Sammons. “In order for the effort to
be successful, we must produce the quality workforce that can
fill these new positions. We need all hands on deck to make
that vision a reality.”
For the πthons team, the middle school students plan to return
to the competition next year. With continued participation,
their preparation for technology-based jobs will only continue.
“With a projected 80,000 jobs available in the cyber
security field by 2020, the skills learned through the National
Youth Cyber Education Program will allow young men and
women to better prepare to fill this critical professional need,”
says Mohammed.
Marshall University’s Women in Cyber
The mission of WInC is to help bridge the gender gap in
technology both on and off campus by providing tech edu-
cation, networking, leadership development and community
outreach opportunities for females of all ages.
“My hope for this group is not only to empower female stu-
dents here on campus but to empower the younger generation
of females to go into technology fields,” says Chelsie Cooper,
an alumna of Marshall’s digital forensics and information
assurance group and WInC’s advisor. “Nothing is more power-
ful than a group of females advocating for something they are
passionate about.”
Cooper joins John Sammons, director of Marshall’s digi-
tal forensics and information assurance program; Morganne
Marshall University’s inaugural Women in Cyber group.
Photo by Azyn Chahryar.
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