By Mackenzie Nichols

In the computer science field and especially in cybersecurity, women are among the minority. By awarding a $10,000 scholarship and paid internship to two women at government contracting company Raytheon, vice president of cybersecurity and special missions Jack Harrington said in a press release that the company hopes to close the gender gap and give young women the opportunity for their work to impact their field. Catherine McLean, a third-year student in the College of Computer and Information Science, is one of the two recipients, and says that female leadership in the field of computer science is important to her.

“This is something that I am very passionate about,” Catherine says. “There aren’t enough women in the computer science field in general and especially in security. I think giving people scholarships is something that’s important because it’s an attracting factor, and more important than that is having leadership figures that are women. It’s just nice to see people that look like you. You can project yourself on to them and see yourself in that position.”

Last year, the College of Computer and Information Science at Northeastern flew Catherine and other female students down to Houston, Texas to attend the world’s largest conference of women in technology, the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, where there were speakers and recruiters all weekend long.

“It was amazing,” Catherine says. “It was so incredible to see so many women there who are passionate about the same thing that I am passionate about.”

Catherine hopes to become a role model for other women interested in computer science and cyber security, and will be continuing her career at Raytheon for a second co-op starting in January. The scholarship she received through the company and the nonprofit Center for Cyber Safety and Education will go toward her Northeastern University tuition, and she is looking forward to learning even more at her second time around with Raytheon.

“There’s always something new to learn,” Catherine says. “I learned so much there and I know I’ll learn even more there a second time.”

Catherine started her first co-op with Raytheon this past January, and was supposed to leave in June, but the company extended it through August. There, she worked in general on vulnerability research, reverse engineering, and development for internal software. Raytheon, a government contracting company, helps our nation’s government protect its national security.

“Cybersecurity is being able to protect and defend information from anyone who’s trying to get at it,” Catherine says. “It is important in the overall context of the country and national security because the Internet is still new and not well understood, so we really need more cyber professionals. It’s a new field in the grand scheme of things, and there’s a lot we don’t know. It’s important to know as much as possible.”

In March, she applied for the scholarship after her bosses at Raytheon urged her to apply, and a few weeks after receiving it in May, she attended the Government Security Leadership Awards, an awards ceremony for top government officials. At the ceremony, Catherine was awarded the scholarship by employees from the event’s sponsor (ISC)^2 and an employee at Raytheon.

“I was so excited and intimidated because there were highly ranked officials that were there from top security agencies,” Catherine says. “I was just an intern around so many important people. They told me I was on a really good path. It was an incredible experience.”

While at her co op at Raytheon, Catherine flew out to Denver, Colorado to participate in the company sponsored National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition, a regional cyber competition in which top professionals and universities compete across the country to defend their systems from being hacked. The “Blue Team” from each university competes to defend from the “Red Team” hackers who try to crack their systems. In this case, Catherine participated on the “Red Team”, giving her a different perspective as the cyber threat.

“My co-worker [at Raytheon] helped teach me a lot about hacking into things,” Catherine says. “I learned a lot from being on the other side.”

Catherine also participated in the Future Cyber Leaders Program at Raytheon. Interns from Raytheon and other security companies Northrop Grumman and Parsons traveled together each week to meet up and get to know people in the industry, Catherine says. They would take tours of buildings and different companies, and would do activities that required skills that they use in their field. On one occasion, Parsons hosted a “Capture the Flag” Jeopardy style event which tested certain skills in order to find the “flags” in certain databases.

At Raytheon, Catherine says that she used what she learned from CCIS to help her when she was asked to develop coding for the company. Her bosses complimented her well designed code, and she attributes her coding skills to the CCIS class Fundamentals of Computer Science 1. Catherine now works as a teaching assistant for Fundies, running one of the labs and organizing the tutors and students for the class.

“[Fundamentals of Computer Science 1] does a great job of introducing computer science to first-years by showing the way of thinking you should have when you’re writing code and programming,” Catherine says. “It teaches you how to think about computer science as opposed to teaching a specific programming language.”

At Northeastern, Catherine also participates in the NU Women in Technology, and has served as a Walk the Walk CCIS panelist helping answer questions from first-year students about the program. She is taking graduate courses along with her undergraduate ones, and will graduate in 2020, participating in the Combined BS and MS program at CCIS.

“One of the things I love about CCIS is how many opportunities there are to volunteer, to participate, and to work for them,” Catherine says. “I like meeting the new students, and I like how I learn new things every time I teach a class. I like to be able to interact with other CCIS members, and get to know other people in the college that might be my peers in the professional world one day.”

Catherine went to a communications high school where she was at first focused on the arts, and then took a programming class and liked the way of thinking that computer science urged her to do. At CCIS, she was introduced to the cybersecurity aspect of the field.

“I like the problem solving aspect [of cyber security]. I like being challenged, and it’s such a new and developing field that’s always changing,” Catherine says. “Cybersecurity is an important mission. The work that I’m going to do is going to be significant and going to help people and that’s something that I want.