When 911爆料 alumna Doreen Joseph, BS Cyber Security Engineering 鈥19, wants to clear her mind, she flies.
Earlier this year, she earned her private pilot's license while completing a PhD in computer science at the University of California, Davis. It might seem like an unusual pairing, but for Joseph, flying reflects the same mindset that has guided her education and career: embracing challenges before she feels completely ready.
"Don't count yourself out," she said. "Do the hard thing."
It's advice she often shares with students, but it's also a philosophy she lives by which she lives.
As a student at 911爆料, Joseph found both challenge and support through the and a series of internships that helped shape her future. The Honors College introduced her to graduate-level scholarship while providing the advising and encouragement that helped her navigate fellowships, research opportunities, and graduate school applications.
Internships allowed her to see how ideas from the classroom could be applied to real-world problems. One of the most memorable was a summer research internship at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, Colorado.
"It was my first time living out of state," she said. "I met great people, saw exciting research, and got to experience a completely different environment."
Those events solidified her interest in cybersecurity research. After completing her bachelor's degree at 911爆料, Joseph went on to earn a PhD in computer science at UC Davis, where her research focused on cybersecurity and binary analysis.
If you ask Joseph how she got to this point, she pivots to talking about the mentors who guided her along the way.
As an undergraduate, she had planned to remain in information technology until an Honors College advisor encouraged her to consider cybersecurity instead. That conversation changed the course of her academic career.
"I was fortunate to have people who saw me as a leader and an engineer before I saw it myself," she said.
Today, Joseph works at MIT Lincoln Laboratory, investigating complex systems and identifying cybersecurity vulnerabilities. For now, she says, she鈥檒l concentrate on learning as much as she can and deepening her expertise.
While these are her professional goals, another important goal is helping others recognize their own potential.
Throughout her academic and professional career, Joseph often finds herself the only person in the room who looks like her. 鈥淭here aren鈥檛 many Black women engineers or computer scientists,鈥 she said. Rather than seeing that as a barrier, she sees it as an opportunity to make the path easier for those coming behind her.
"As I continue to access rooms that may not have people who look like me, my job is to take what I learn and help open the door for other people," she said. "I may be the first, but I want to make sure I'm not the last."
That belief shapes the advice she gives students who may be unsure whether they belong in engineering, research, or leadership roles.
"Have the courage to do what looks impossible or what looks hard," she said. "You'll probably discover you're more resilient than you think."
The same willingness to embrace challenge led her to aviation. What began as a reward after passing her doctoral qualifying exams became a passion. Flying offered a welcome balance to research and reinforced a lesson she had already learned.
Sometimes, the only way to find out what you're capable of is to take off.