A full list of the 2019 scholarship and fellowship recipients, along with their bios, appears below.

Bridget Bartell is a cybersecurity analyst working for the University of Wisconsin-Madison as part of the Office of Cybersecurity’s Operation Center (CSOC) and Incident Response team. She leads CSOC daily activities and intel gathering to triage and respond to security requests and anomalous activities across campus. She is also responsible for taking action on 3rd party shared Indicators of Compromise (IOC) which enable CSOC quicker response to new attacks and campaigns. She has helped develop a number of threat hunting plays and procedures which assist in more proactively identifying and remediating attacks on campus. In 2014, Bridget came to Madison, Wisc., to finish her bachelor of science degree in psychology. She worked as a student at the Division of Information Technology Help Desk on campus until 2017 when she graduated and soon after joined the cybersecurity team. Since joining, she has successfully completed two SANS courses and corresponding GIAC certifications (Security Essentials – GSEC and Critical Controls – GCCC) and is currently studying for her Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) exam.

Jacqueline Knight-Barber is a support engineer for OSHEAN, located in Rhode Island. OSHEAN is a highly diverse membership consisting of higher education, K-12 schools, libraries, hospitals, government agencies, and other non-profit organizations dedicated to providing innovative Internet-based technology solutions for its member institutions and the communities they serve. She is responsible for frontline member support and internal escalation processes. She works in depth with optical, IP, video, security and cloud technology. She coordinates with engineers internally and at the network operations center in Indiana to oversee the maintenance of the network and make sure everything is functioning properly. Jacqueline came to tech later than some, but she quickly realized a new passion and has not looked back. Other than her day-to-day work she has a desire to learn as much as she can and attends Women in Tech courses so she can be the best version of herself.

Shashwitha Puttaswamy is a research scientist, cyberinfrastructure, at The George Washington University. In her current role, she works closely with GW Nanofabrication and Imaging Center scientists to understand their workflow design issue which includes complex data-intensive research. Her contributions to the research is to identify new opportunities to leverage large data transfer and to provide end-to-end high throughput connectivity in an existing infrastructure. She is also the primary lead on sensor data collection which involves working with different IoT sensors to develop data collection strategies to help the DC government and researcher analyze pressure, temperature, and gasses in the environment. Prior to joining GWU in 2019, she was a network research engineer at California Institute of Technology, supporting and maintaining their production “Tier2” computing and storage facility in support of the Large Hadron Collider physics program. Puttaswamy was part of the team that awarded CENIC’s 2019 Innovations in Networking Award for Experimental Applications for setting a new record for data transfer rates that will enable researchers to tackle massive datasets faster and satisfy unprecedented scientific needs. She holds a bachelor of science degree in electronics and communication engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, and a master of science degree in electrical engineering with a specialization in computer networks from San Diego State University.

NSRC-Internet2 Fellowship recipients:

Deshon Miguel is currently serving as the interim information technology manager at Tohono O’odham Community College on the Tohono O’odham Reservation. She supervises the IT staff, manages and coordinates all IT-related matters including network, data, wireless, telephone, security, and computer hardware and software to ensure the effective operation of all information technology systems are being utilized by the college to the fullest potential. She is an integral part of consulting with various outside parties that help with the overall success and forward progress of the college. She has six years of progressive experience in information technology, starting with an internship and part-time position as a computer assistant where she was essential in developing a network to run at a functioning and highly efficient capacity. She attended I.T.T Technical Institute in Tucson, Arizona, to obtain her associate of applied science degree in network systems administration.

Joy Thompson is the IT director at Diné College in the heart of the Navajo Nation in northwest Arizona in Tsaile. It is here where one of the first Native American Colleges was started and has flourished for over 50 years. It stands in the shadow of the beautiful Chuska Mountains. Thompson is originally from Acoma, New Mexico, but has spent most of her life on the Navajo Nation reservation where she married and raised four children. She is a member of the Acoma and Navajo Tribes. After graduating from Rockland Institute with a degree in computer information systems, her career building period began with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, working in multiple roles as both a technical expert and manager, building the Information Technology Division from the ground up. Accomplishments included the implementation of SAP ERP for the utility, one of the first US SAP Utilities implementations in 2000. After 33 years of service, she ended her tenure as CIO and turned to starting her business, Spectrum Solutions LLC. Her experience in several IT roles and responsibilities give her a 360° view and understanding of business and IT management. She came to work at Diné College as director of information technology in October 2017, new to the higher education sector, yet experienced in holistic management of IT operations and projects where she has been able to lead a group of dedicated teams, eager to bring the best of technology to students.

About The Network Startup Resource Center (nsrc.org)
The Network Startup Resource Center, which is based at the University of Oregon, was established in 1992 to provide technical assistance to organizations setting up computer networks in new areas to connect scientists engaged in collaborative research and education. For the past 25 years, the NSRC has helped develop Internet infrastructure and network operations communities in Africa, Asia/Pacific, Latin America/Caribbean, and the Middle East. The NSRC is partially funded by the International Research Network Connections (IRNC) program of the U.S. National Science Foundation and Google, with additional contributions from dozens of public and private organizations. For more information, visit https://nsrc.org/