Dara Epstein is pursuing a Master of Science in Cybersecurity at Georgia Tech. Beginning her career in city and regional planning where she spent six years developing policies and shaping design to enhance the resilience and quality of urban and natural environments, her shift into technology was inspired by the 2018 City of Atlanta ransomware attack, which paralyzed the city’s digital infrastructure for weeks. Encouraged by a mentor, Dara embraced her long-standing interest in technology and engineering to finally embark on a path towards launching a career in STEM, centered on advancing cybersecurity policy and resilience. This decision to change careers led her to exploring evolving cybersecurity challenges and policy issues, with a particular focus on how these intersect with the intricate landscape of wireless technology across the public and private sectors. Her growing interest ultimately guided her to pursue her master’s degree to seize the opportunity for deeper research
Goals and Aspirations: Dara’s current academic and professional research interests focus on exploring cybersecurity policy and threats related to wireless technology, including emerging satellite and communication systems, and their impact on data security, privacy, and availability. Her interests also extend to analyzing cyber threat intelligence with data analytics, the intersection of cyber operations and economic warfare, combatting deep fake technology and technology-driven disinformation campaigns, and researching related opportunities to leverage emerging technologies such as quantum computing and AI.