We are happy to introduce Senior Congressional Innovation Fellow Candace Moix. Using her extensive background in national security, cybersecurity, and trust & safety matters, Candace will be joining the office of Senator Peter Welch (D-VT) to support commerce and judiciary committee tech work.
Read more on Candace’s journey to fulfilling her childhood dream of working in federal government in her blog below.
My high school friends recently shared a photo of an old English assignment with me. It was a superlatives poll, where I was somewhat jokingly voted “Most Likely to Be a Spy.” This, however, wasn’t really a joke to me. When I was fairly young, I had decided that I wanted to work in national security. I was fascinated by the work and driven by a passion for public service; I knew I wanted to work for the Federal Government.
To ensure I was prepared for any opportunities that came my way, I tried to learn as much as I could about anything that might be useful to security studies. During my undergraduate studies at the University of Pittsburgh, I focused on Psychology, Global Studies, Languages, and Administration of Justice. I then focused my studies further with an MA from King’s College London’s War Studies Department in Terrorism, Security, and Society and started applying for jobs with the U.S. Government. While waiting to hear back from employers, I learned about the National Science Foundation’s CyberCorps program. The program is a Scholarship for Service, serving as a pathway into critical technical roles in the government. I reached out to the program director at the University of Tulsa and, less than a month later, I was starting graduate school yet again! The program provided an MS in Computer Science with a cyber operations specialization that supported my transition into technical work.
From there, I went on to work as a Digital Network Exploitation Analyst with the U.S. Government, an Analyst with Krebs Stamos Group, and a Strategic Threat Intelligence Analyst with Recorded Future. These all provided tremendous opportunities in the national security space, but always centered around intelligence analysis. While the importance of Intelligence work shouldn’t be undervalued, the work can make analysts feel removed from decision making and consequently, removed from impact. As a result, I’ve been searching for opportunities to improve Americans’ safety and security more directly, and systemically.
That brings me to TechCongress! I am thrilled to be supporting the Government in a new role as a technology advisor. I plan to fully leverage my interdisciplinary background to support policymakers and improve how society engages with technology. Although I’m interested in continuing to support national security, cybersecurity, and trust and safety issues, I’m also dedicated to broadening my areas of expertise through this fellowship. As a Type 1 Diabetic, I personally understand how the integration of technology into our daily lives can be both critical and risky; I hope to use my security background to explore new technology areas, specifically medical technologies, that affect the wellbeing of Americans.