Women make up only 24% of the cyber security workforce, and I am making steps to change that. My name is Anna Enwright, and I am a cyber security major and a dual minor in AI/ robotics and political science at Marymount University. I have a 4.0 GPA and also work as a cyber security supplemental instructor on campus. Most importantly, however, I am the founder and two time/ current president of Marymount University’s Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) Student Chapter. WiCyS is a global organization dedicated to supporting women in STEM, and I am a proud member. Since my founding of Marymount’s chapter, I’ve gone from starting with only three people to growing our club to a number over 30 in a single academic year. I have organized, and led different cyber security workshops to an audience of my undergraduate peers, graduate students, and professors. I have also helped my peers apply and get accepted to the annual WiCyS conference, and was awarded a conference scholarship myself, of which I am incredibly grateful. I have done my very best to create a safe space for the women in STEM on campus, and I will continue to do so until I graduate and someone else takes my place. The most important thing I’ve done, however, is my organizing and creation of Marymount WiCyS’s High School outreach campaign. I am a strong believer that by starting STEM education at a young age, especially education in the cyber and IT fields, it can help increase the amount of women who want to go into the field. Cyber security has one of the lowest women/men ratios in all of IT, and that is something completely unacceptable. By reaching out to high schools, I hope to engage and introduce young women to cyber and its related fields. By reaching out to high schools, I hope to work with teachers and interact with any and all students interested in learning what cyber security is. I have already gathered volunteers to act as personal mentors to students who desire one. I also plan to invite groups of students from local highschools in the Arlington, VA and D.C. area to attend WiCyS events at Marymount, where we can run hands-on workshops and allow these students to learn in a higher-ed environment. My main goal is to show these young women that making a career in cyber or other STEM fields is not something to shy away from. Instead, I hope to show them how myself and others in my chapter have learned to thrive in the higher-ed environment. I hope to also inspire and help these students create their own WiCyS chapter, where they can gain access to funding and scholarships to the WiCyS conference, the same conference I attended when I was in their shoes, as a senior in high school. I truly think this conference and the thousands of experienced and inspiring women who I saw there changed the trajectory of my life, as they made me want to choose cyber. I can only hope that through my efforts at Marymount, that I help at least one other young woman find the same inspiration, and choose a path in STEM.

I admire Spam Checkers. While there are other technologies out in the world, like rocket ships and high powered quantum computers, I think the Spam Checkers could beat them all. Yes, the super advanced technologies can change the world and are instrumental to future developments, but there is no doubt in my mind that, to the average person, the existence of these technologies has little to no impact on their lives. No farmer in the center of Nebraska, USA has ever said, ‘I am so thankful we are able to calculate the speed of a comet in 0.00001 seconds. But that farmer in Nebraska has, without a doubt, been thankful that there is a piece of technology that sorts their emails for them. I think the most inspirational pieces of tech are the ones that touch us in our everyday lives. Things like stop lights, and fire truck sirens. Things as big as defibrillators and as small as spam sorting software. They are all important, and they have a real effect on the lives of everyone we know. My grandfather, a widower 73 years young, has absolutely been saved by Spam Checkers. He has been susceptible to phone scams in the past, saved only by my mother and the bank holding transactions, but through email he has seen no phishing scams. My family and I are so incredibly thankful for this, and I know that other families in similar situations around the world feel the same. And, so, I believe the world has been made a better place because of this tech. For every one rocket scientist sending a rover to Mars, there are hundreds of thankful people who no longer have to worry about their elderly falling victim to phishing. I believe in helping the average person. I believe when technology helps an everyday person, then it has made a worthwhile impact, and thus has made the world a better place.

My name is Anna Enwright, and I am a rising Sophomore attending Marymount University. I have a 4.0 GPA, am majoring in cyber security, and minoring in both artificial intelligence/ robotics and political science. I have a strong drive to make an impact on the world, and I truly believe the most impact can be made in focusing efforts on improving and providing education to everyone. Since I was a Freshman in high school, I have been volunteering to tutor my peers and those around me in any way that I could, and today I work as a Cyber Security Supplemental Instructor for students at my university. I run tutoring sessions three to five times a week, and I work one on one with students to help them achieve their full potential in their studies. I especially love that I get to tutor students in something I am passionate about: Cyber Security. In addition to tutoring, I am the founder of a Marymount University’s Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) student chapter, of which I am going into my second year as the president. Women in Cybersecurity is an amazing organization that works tirelessly to bridge the ‘digital divide’ in cyber and related STEAM fields, and serves as an influential and supportive organization for women and allies alike in the field. Through my WiCyS chapter, I have started a campaign in which myself and other interested members reach out to local high schools and help them develop a WiCyS chapter of their own. We also offer to act as mentors to any and all students interested in a cyber career, which is especially important in schools that do not have a cyber or computer science program. I am very passionate about reaching out to high schools because I think there are so many students who are full of potential, but who are unable to access resources that could help them start or be interested in a career in cyber. By reaching out and offering services to these students, we would be allowing them the chance to attend the annual WiCyS conference, and to attend any WiCyS chapter meetings/ events that occur throughout the semester. I have always been interested in STEAM related fields, but what I have been most drawn to is cyber security. I have been coding since elementary school, making my own games on the Hour of Code, and my passion continued with me throughout high school, where I took every IT course offered to and went so far as to do an independent study of Advanced Java Programming my junior year. Today, going into my Sophomore year at Marymount, I have chosen to go into a cyber security career because it allows me to still work in IT and actively help people while doing so.