Diver s ity UNLOCKS
INN VATION WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH
NAME: NSIN AFFILIATION: AFFILIATION: STATE:
Monica Aahana Bernard Hacking for Defense Alum Computer Scientist at NAWCTSD, U.S. Navy Florida
QUESTION. What inspired you to explore the national security community? Do you have a connection to the Military/Government Service? ANSWER. Yes, I do work for the U.S. government, but first I want to start off by giving a little background on how I ended up working for the U.S. Department of Defense. I grew up in India and lived there for most of my life. Growing up, I always knew I wanted to do something different with my career. The corporate private industry did not appeal to me, so I began to seek out and explore my options. I chose to pursue an undergraduate degree in Electronics and Communication Engineering. Shortly after graduation, I got married and moved to the United States in 2015. I had a desire for continued education, so I worked as a tutor in my in-laws’ tutoring business to help pay for my graduate degree in Computer Science at the University of Central Florida (UCF). During the last semester of my graduate degree, I was selected to be one of 18 students to take part in UCF’s first Hacking for Defense (H4D) course (sponsored by NSIN). As part of our coursework, we were assigned a project where we had to find a creative solution to an existing issue for the DoD. We interviewed several experts related to our project (military and civilian) to help guide us to the best solution. As we progressed through the semester and got to the final stages of our project, I gained a deeper appreciation for the men and women in uniform. So, when I was offered a job to work for the U.S. Navy near the end of my final semester, I jumped at the chance to be a part of something bigger than myself. Since August of 2021, I’ve been working at the Naval Air Warfare Center Training Systems Division (NAWCTSD) as a computer scientist.
Q. As a woman, how is the national security community different for you? A. We, as a society, have created certain stereotypes for different professions. Knowingly or unknowingly, there can be an inherent bias in who is expected to do what. One such idea is that engineering is not for women. A few years ago, my husband and I were waiting in line for a ride at Disney. We happened to overhear a young girl telling her father that she didn’t like physics and that she didn’t see the point of learning it because it wasn’t a career path she could pursue. When her dad inquired about why she felt that way, the girl mentioned that her teacher had made a statement saying that physics was mostly for guys that liked to tinker with things. At that point, I could no longer contain myself — I turned around and told her that her teacher was mistaken. I told her that I had studied electrical engineering, a subject closely related to physics, and that it’s not just for boys. Her dad was very appreciative of the fact that his daughter could hear it from a woman that was in the industry. I am not sure if that girl decided to pursue physics after that, but it makes me wonder how many other women are discouraged from entering STEM related fields because of similar statements made by people around them. There is a lot of evidence that this notion is slowly changing with time but there’s plenty of work to be done. In my experience so far, I’ve encountered very few women in the national security community, let alone engineering in the national security community. I currently work in a lab where my coworkers are predominantly male, except for one other female coworker. All my coworkers are extremely supportive of me and do not differentiate between either gender. I just hope that as we move forward, the powerful and challenging job positions in our