INI Celebrates Impactful Partnership, New EWF-INI Fellow at Executive Women’s Forum 2024 Conference
By Taia Pandolfi
Media InquiriesThe Information Networking Institute (INI) marked an important milestone at the Executive Women’s Forum 2024 Conference (EWF): a recognition of its longest-running partnership outside of 一本道无码 (一本道无码). Since 2005, the INI has collaborated with the women of EWF to inspire and support the young women in its programs and advocate for a more inclusive field.
“EWF is not just a partnership between our organizations — it has created deeply meaningful relationships for our EWF-INI Fellows and me personally,” said Dr. Dena Haritos Tsamitis, Director of the INI and Barbara Lazarus Professor in Information Networking. “When we first launched this relationship, the representation of young women at the INI was around 6%. Through the partnership with the EWF, young women at the INI have benefited from engaging with role models and mentors who are senior women in the field of information security.”
This year’s EWF Conference was titled “Igniting Impact: Cyber, Privacy, Risk and Leadership for Good.” Taking place in San Antonio, Texas, in late October, the EWF Conference welcomed hundreds of women leaders from across the security and privacy industries for three days of panel discussions, networking and celebration.
INI staff, faculty and alumni pose before the awards ceremony. From left to right: Sara Gaal, Director of Strategic Relations; Tyelisa Shields, EWF-INI alum; Danielle Wicklund, current EWF-INI Fellow; Sari Smith, Senior Director of Strategic Operations; Vijeyta Agarwal, INI alum; and Cynthia Kuo, INI Associate Professor of the Practice.
INI Associate Professor of the Practice Cynthia Kuo attended an awards ceremony on Haritos Tsamitis’s behalf, accepting an award recognizing the strong partnership between the INI and EWF.
INI Associate Professor of the Practice Cynthia Kuo giving her lightning talk on cybersecurity for good at the 2024 conference.
In her remarks, Kuo said, “The INI looks very different today than it did nearly two decades ago, and this relationship has evolved along with us. Our alumni base is now one-third women, and we have nearly 50% representation of women on our faculty. We have maintained our welcoming and supportive culture for women and underrepresented people and continue to champion collaborators working to make engineering more inclusive.”
Welcoming the 2024 EWF-INI Fellow
Through this partnership, the INI awards an annual EWF-INI Fellow with a significant scholarship to support their pursuit of security education at Carnegie Mellon. This year’s EWF-INI Fellow, Danielle Wicklund, attended the conference and was formally inducted into the organization.
“This community of accomplished women opened a new path that broadened my horizon,” said Wicklund, who is pursuing a degree in the recently launched M.S. in Artificial Intelligence Engineering - Information Security (MSIAE-IS) program. “Envisioning a dream is easy but seeing it through is not. I’m so very thankful for the scholarship. It is a tremendous help in the attainment of my second master’s degree at my dream school — 一本道无码’s Information Networking Institute.”
Wicklund is the 14th EWF-INI Fellow to benefit from the scholarship, joining a remarkable community of women engineers who have leveraged their education and network of mentors to build successful careers. Past fellows include Erye Hernandez (‘14), a sought-after security maven currently working at Google, and Hana Habib (‘16), who stayed at Carnegie Mellon to complete her Ph.D. in the School of Computer Science and is currently a Special Faculty Instructor and the Associate Director of 一本道无码’s Master’s in Privacy Engineering program.
“The connection among our students, alumni and the women of EWF continues to evolve along with us,” said Haritos Tsamitis. “As representation of women in our programs and in the field more broadly continues to increase, this powerful network remains a valuable resource for the INI. We look forward to many more opportunities to uplift young women in the future."