University of Southern California
B.A. Intelligence & Cyber Operations; GPA 3.96
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Activities: USC TACTICS (Co-Director), CybOrg (CTF Director), CybOrg Consulting
About Me
I'm a cybersecurity student at USC with experience in security research, threat intelligence, software development, and competitive cyber. I'm passionate about solving challenging technical problems, continuously learning, and making a meaningful impact through technology.
Education
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
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Activities: Computer Security Club (President), CyberPatriot Club (Co-President)
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2023 National Cyber Scholar with Honors
Professional Certifications
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CompTIA Security+
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GIAC GFACT
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Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate
Experience
Learning Assistant
USC Viterbi School of Engineering · TAC 325 - Ethical Hacking
Aug 2026 – Present
- Grade hands-on labs covering penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, and exploitation.
- Provide technical feedback on student submissions and hold office hours.
Intelligence Launch Intern
CrowdStrike · Recon+ Team
May 2026 – Aug 2026
- Triaged 3,500+ deep and dark web intelligence alerts, investigating threat actors and emerging cyber threats.
- Conducted independent threat intelligence research and authored multiple reports, including two published.
- Developed Python and regex tooling to automate repetitive analysis, identify false-positive noise, and improve analyst workflows.
- Shadowed CrowdStrike's OverWatch threat hunting and Incident Response teams, gaining exposure to their investigative workflows.
Technical Intern (Software Development)
NT Concepts
Jul 2025 – Aug 2025
- Developed and deployed AI agents and FastAPI endpoints for natural-language querying and analysis of structured data.
- Integrated cloud-based Gemini and locally hosted Gemma models using Python, LangChain, SQL, and Ollama.
- Presented technical work to the U.S. Army Technical Point of Contact and a company-wide audience.
ASSIP Cybersecurity Research Intern
George Mason University · Department of Computer Science
Jun 2024 – Aug 2024
- Researched VR keylogging side-channel attacks under Dr. Xiaokuan Zhang, developing Unity, C#, and Python tools to collect and analyze controller motion-position data.
- Achieved 96.1% keystroke-inference accuracy using K-Nearest Neighbors; published a research abstract in George Mason University's Journal of Student-Scientists' Research and presented a research poster.
Projects
Enterprise Server & Active Directory Home Lab
- Built a Dell PowerEdge R620 home lab with mirrored SSD storage and Proxmox virtualization, hosting Windows/Linux VMs, an OPNsense firewall, and Active Directory domain controllers.
- Configured an ASUS RT-AC66U router running DD-WRT as a wireless bridge, segmented virtual networks, and enabled secure remote Proxmox access through Tailscale.
Networking Proxmox OPNsense RAID Active Directory Tailscale Computer Hardware
CTF Challenge Development
- Designed and developed 30+ cybersecurity challenges for international CTF competitions and internal club events.
Cryptography Binary Exploitation Reverse Engineering Web Security Digital Forensics OSINT
Additional Projects
Othello AI
View source codeDeveloped a competitive AI for the boardgame Othello using Negamax search, alpha-beta pruning, and heuristic board evaluation to optimize decision-making.
Python · Heuristics · Game AI · Algorithms
Wordle Solver
View source codeDeveloped a web-based Wordle solver using Express.js and JavaScript, generating word suggestions from a 170,000-word dictionary.
Implemented regex filtering and Fetch API requests to retrieve suggestions based on user-provided clues.
JavaScript · Express.js · HTML/CSS · Regex · Fetch API
Competitions
Team affiliations
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Competitor · 2023–Present
CTFtime team ranking: US #1 · World #5
October 2026
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Member · 2024–Present
CTFtime team ranking: US #17
2025
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Competitor · 2025–Present
CTFtime team ranking: US #23
2025
Featured results
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September 2026
Result: 1st / 504 teams
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Result: 3rd / 20+ teams
National finalist
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National Cyber League (Team Game)
Spring 2025
Result: 5th / 4,779 teams
Standard Bracket
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March 2025
Result: 6th / 1,140 teams
High school
Result: 18th / 6,533 teams
Global
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March 2025
Result: Top 12 / 5,000+ teams
National finalist
Team captain; placed 2nd of 28 in the Boeing Cyber-Physical Systems Challenge at Nationals.
Research
Technical research
Published abstract & poster
2024
Keylogging in Virtual Reality: Assessing Data Vulnerabilities via Motion-Position Sensors
George Mason University · ASSIP
Investigated VR keylogging side-channel attacks under Dr. Xiaokuan Zhang, collecting controller motion-position data without explicit user permissions. Developed a machine learning pipeline using K-Nearest Neighbors to reconstruct typed input with 96.1% accuracy.
Research Paper · 12 pages
2024–2025
Side-Channel Attacks in Video Identification via Encrypted Traffic Analysis
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology
Investigated how encrypted video streams can reveal viewing activity through observable network traffic patterns. Developed a Wireshark/Python analysis pipeline and adapted a convolutional neural network to TensorFlow 2, demonstrating video identification on a limited dataset.
Selected writing
May 2025
The Limits of Hacktivism: Bellaby’s Ethical Framework and the Problem of Decentralization
Research Essay · 8 pages
Examines how decentralized hacker collectives challenge ethical standards for political hacking, focusing on proportionality, accountability, attribution, and the risks of AI-assisted escalation.
May 2024
The Cybersecurity Skills Gap Necessitates an Emphasis on Critical Thinking
Research Essay · 15 pages
Examines the cybersecurity skills gap through industry research and an expert interview, arguing that technical training alone is insufficient. Explores the role of critical thinking in cybersecurity education and how cognitive diversity and incident-response tabletop exercises can improve security decision-making.
November 10, 2023
Don’t be afraid of AI
The Washington Post · Letter to the editor
Published letter discussing prompt-injection risks, attacker incentives, and the role of bug bounty programs in improving AI security.
CTF Writeups
Technical walkthroughs covering cryptography, side-channel attacks, and Linux exploitation challenges.
View All Writeups