Jen Easterly, director of CISA, to keynote at Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) conference

CLEVELAND, Ohio, Feb. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) conference, March 17-19, in Cleveland, Ohio, will focus on women in the field and highlight four keynote speakers, including Jen Easterly, director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

The WiCyS conference is distinctive because of its focus on recruiting, retaining, inspiring and advancing women in cybersecurity careers while also including students, educators, industry, government, military and research organizations.

"We are excited to include Director Easterly as one of our keynote speakers. WiCyS 2022 is about finding ways to connect, inspire, and guide our community. A key component of the conference is our community hearing from inspiring role models in cybersecurity," said Dr. Janell Straach, WiCyS chair of the board.

Easterly was nominated for her current position by President Biden in April 2021 and leads CISA's efforts to understand, manage and reduce risks to cyber and physical infrastructures used by Americans. She worked for the White House as senior director for counterterrorism and special assistant to President Obama as well as was executive assistant to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice under President George W. Bush.

Prior to her current role, Easterly was global head of Firm Resilience and the Fusion Resilience Center at Morgan Stanley. She helped build and lead its Cybersecurity Fusion Center. She also served as deputy for counterterrorism at the National Security Agency and was a member of the Defense Intelligence Senior Executive Service.

Easterly served for more than 20 years in the U.S. Army where she received the Bronze Star twice and worked in intelligence and cyber operations. She was instrumental in designing and creating the U.S. Cyber Command.

Easterly has written several published articles, received a number of fellowships, and earned the James Foley Legacy Foundation American Hostage Freedom Award and the Bradley W. Snyder Changing the Narrative Award. This Rhodes Scholar is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and holds a master's in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford.

"As a senior woman leader in cyber, one of my top priorities is to inspire more women and girls to see themselves in cyber and join this incredibly exciting and impactful field," said CISA Director Jen Easterly. "As we work to collectively raise the security baseline of our nation, the creativity, imagination and empathy that women bring to this effort will make our Nation stronger".

Journalists are invited to attend and should email [email protected] to request a media pass. For more information on WiCyS or the conference, visit http://www.wicys.org.

About WiCyS:
Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) is the premier nonprofit organization with international reach dedicated to bringing together women in cybersecurity. Founded by Dr. Ambareen Siraj from Tennessee Tech University through a National Science Foundation grant in 2013, WiCyS offers opportunities and resources for its members and collaboration benefits for its sponsors and partners. Strategic partners include Tier 1: Amazon Web Services, Bloomberg, Carnegie Mellon University – Software Engineering Institute, Cisco, Facebook, Google, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Optum, SentinelOne. Tier 2: Abbvie, Fortinet, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Linkedin, Navy Federal Credit Union, Nike, Starbucks, Wayfair, Workday. Tier 3: Haystack Solutions, HERE Technologies, Home Depot, MITRE, Palo Alto Networks, Smoothstack. To partner, visit https://www.wicys.org/support/strategic-partnerships/.

Media Contact

Lynn Dohm, Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS), 815-530-7307, [email protected]

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SOURCE Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS)