IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2017 - 11

too much blood from her," shares Ng
Ain Kin. "And I was thinking about
how close I am to the blood-testing
technology that could help her but was
not available to her. I think that people
will have a longer or better life due to
two things: better devices or better
medicine. That type of progress is the
reason I love being a scientist."

Finding Yourself
Though she says she would not go back
to commodity software or the defense
industry, she's grateful for the learning
opportunities that helped her find what
she does not want to do or what circumstances are no longer manageable.
"I am moving very far away from software engineering and, as you get older
and there are life events, you have to be
aware of what you're doing and really
know yourself," she shares.
That same philosophy has been
applied throughout her life to Ng Ain
Kin's extracurricular activities. She
joined the IEEE as a college student,
rising to become chair of the Student
Branch at McGill, and stayed connected to local Chapters throughout
her early career. "My first ten years,
I st ayed away from the technical
groups because I was intimidated,"
she admits. "Not being in academia, I
didn't see a way to fit in to the technical societies that offered opportunities
to publish papers."
After becoming more comfortable
with her own career experience, she
changed her mind. Upon moving to the
United States, Ng Ain Kin participated
in the founding and leadership of the
New Hampshire WIE Affinity Group as
well as the formation of the NH Teacher-In-Service-Program (TISP), which
encourages mentorship and support for
teachers directly.
"I really like roles in education,
maybe because my late mother was
a teacher," she says. "IEEE has been
a platform to help me bring people
together, to build upon ideas, and support education." Aside from the TISP
program, which Ng Ain Kin continued with after moving back to Canada,
she was appointed to the Education

Activities Pre-Engineering Coordination Committee and, in 2010, received
t he Ca nadia n Adva nced Technology Alliance WIE Mentor of the Year
award for her work locally with Student Branches. "I love being a mentor,"
she shares. "You are part teacher, part
friend, and even part parent!" Throughout these efforts, she also served in several leadership capacities within the
Ottawa Section, eventually accepting
an appointment to the IEEE Women in
Engineering Committee for the years
2015-2017.
Admittedly, it was difficult for Ng
Ain Kin to attend as many IEEE and
WIE events as she would have liked
due to her work commitments but that
looks to be changing as well, as she
seeks the balance she prefers for herself. "My job now is headquartered in
California and allows me to travel every
other month, which means I can also
connect with more people as I work
through the planned changes I have
for my final year as a WIE Committee
member," she explains.
Striving for balance is something
Ng Ain Kin has always struggled with
but prioritized. While the priorities have
shifted over her impressive 25-year
career, she says she would never have
guessed when she graduated that this
is the life she wanted. Still, it works
well for her. "IEEE gives me the opportunities to do the charitable things I
can't necessarily do at work, where my
role is supporting a for-profit global
organization," she says. At home, her
husband and two sons share her passions. "It's a high-technology house,
but a great choice for my family,"
she says.
Ng Ain Kin shares a common joke in
her house: "We have more computers
or devices than humans!" Which, she
continues, is not always a bad thing.
"The key is balance and also embracing the changes along the way. Think
of bamboo: it is very pliable and yet
very strong. Being willing to bend when
needed or staying firm at other times,
that is necessary in my field."

Pioneering Cybersecurity
Research

-Leslie Prives

June 2017

Benzel battling malware

Terry Benzel is deputy director of the
Computer Networks Division at the
Information Sciences Institute (ISI) of
the University of Southern California
(USC). She also leads the Cyber Defense
Technology Experimental Research
(DETER) project and DETERLab test bed
projects funded by U.S. Department of
Homeland Security, the National Science Foundation, and the Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency. The
projects are developing an experimental
infrastructure network and scientifically rigorous testing frameworks and
methodologies to support the development and demonstration of next-generation information security technologies
for cyberdefense.
Her career spans working at a government research think tank, a small
start-up company that went through
an initial public offering (IPO) and was
bought, becoming a vice president at
McAfee, and contributing to research
at the Institute for Critical Information
Infrastructure Protection, where she
developed Systemic Security Management. She also serves as an advisor to
government and industry on research
and development strategy and road map
development, including providing past
guidance to the White House Office of
Science Technology and Policy, the U.S.
Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office,
and the U.S. Department of Defense, as
well as to industry alliances.
The majority of her career has
been in research but, at USC, she also
participates in the business development side of her field, creating opensource bodies of work, developing
public/private partnerships in information security research, and working on
technology transfer and special projects
with industrial and academic partners.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2017.2675242
Date of publication: 9 May 2017

IEEE womEn In EngInEErIng magazInE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2017