Joel Asiamah, cybersecurity technical professional, researches and develops technical solutions to bolster the resiliency and security of our nation’s energy control systems. For Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we asked Joel about his cybersecurity career. Check out his responses below.
What led you to pursue a career in cybersecurity?
Some of my colleagues within the cybersecurity space may have a similar experience as me. While in college I majored in Mechanical Engineering and only became familiar with cybersecurity after participating in a scholarship program called CyberCorps. And like any college student I figured this was only a good means of funding my college degree. However, as I gained more exposure to the nature of cybersecurity, the significance of security within our globally connected world became clearer. I started to see how the contributions of cyber researchers to secure our nation’s critical infrastructure safeguarded me each day from bad actors.
Why is cybersecurity research important to national security?
Cybersecurity research is important simply because many of our networks, devices and electronic data are vulnerable and can be exploited by bad actors. Cybersecurity research allows us to see through the lens of bad actors and develop a framework to safeguard our systems.
In two sentences, what do you do as a cybersecurity professional?
As a cybersecurity professional I research and develop technical solutions to improve and bolster the resiliency and security of our nation’s Energy Control Systems. Another crucial responsibility of a cybersecurity professional is to collaborate with other researchers to present material to a technical audience and leadership on cyber security issues and research.
Do you have any advice for students thinking about pursuing a career in cybersecurity?
Cybersecurity nowadays affects a lot of different systems used in other scientific disciplines; thus students should pursue other interdisciplinary fields of study in addition to cybersecurity to help develop more creative solutions to improve the nation’s cybersecurity.
#seeyourselfincyber
