Cox one of 11 to receive national scholarship

10/10/2014 12:11 PM

By Shanlee Bratten ‘15

Christa Cox ’15, a computer science major from Lowpoint, Illinois, is one of 11 women in the U.S. to receive a “Scholarship for Women Studying Information Security” (SWSIS). The scholarship is funded by HP and winners are chosen by the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research and SWSIS.

Upon receiving the news that she won a scholarship, Cox said she was shocked and surprised. At first she had underestimated how few students received the scholarship and the number of applicants for it.

Cox’s scholarship includes $5,000 per year for up to two years of education and trips to several computer science conferences in the coming year. In addition, she and other winners will be honored at the SANS conference in Washington D.C this winter.

Her father, who works in the computer science field, first brought the scholarship opportunity to her attention. She describes it as “a fluke” that she would hear about the scholarship in this way.

She applied in May and was contacted by SWSIS in early July.

Cox admires and respects the people working for the SWISIS organization, whose main goal is to help women break into the information security field. She is glad that an organization is taking action to encourage women to study information security and supporting women who work in the information security field.

“They keep in touch with you,” she said. “They’re genuine about what they’re doing and they really have a passion for it.”  

HP announced the scholarship as part of a larger effort to improve IT security education after it was reported that there is a tremendous gap in this industry, with an estimated 40 percent of available information security positions in the United States are unfilled. 

Bradley recently added a software, web and computer security concentration after recognizing that gap.  Another gap identified is that women only make up 20 percent of the information security workforce and the organizations involved in the scholarship hope these awards will address that.