Author: Dr. Olivia M. Blackmon
The George Washington’s Integrated Information, Science and Technology (IIST) hosted more than 50 program mentors, alumni and current students at the First Annual IIST Alumni Reunion at the Arlington Campus on Saturday, April 9. The reunion took place for the classes of 2010-2016.
The event included a panel discussion from alumni and the program director, Dr. Sara Hooshangi. Alumni confirmed that working full-time and attending school was a juggling act, and time management was critical to successfully completing the program. They elaborated on the benefits of the cohort model, where students entered the program together and attended the pre-set classes each semester; providing the supportive environment and motivation to complete the program. Once completing the program, alumni agreed that the skills they learned from the program such as project management, communication through writing, and effectively translating difficult technology strategies to end users have assisted them in the professional environment.
The reunion also provided an opportunity for attendees to view students’ capstone projects. During this part of the program, seniors demonstrated their ability to take an idea from conception to final presentation; combining academic knowledge, research and professional skills into a coherent product.
Amanda Harbison
Genome Structure via Crosslinking I: Method Development
Won second place in the GWs Research Day. Her project focused on the genome organization in order to understand the molecular assemblies associated with the regulation of gene expression.
Omar Mousa, Valeriya Myronenko, and Zelalem Tadesse
Academic Service Learning Project
Focused on working with Francis-Stevens Middle School to conduct an on-site afterschool learning program. Students learned about HTML and CSS content and coding over a week module.
Marc McCarthy
Project Cyber Pathway, Building a Foundation in Defensive Cybersecurity
Helped align individuals in need of developing cyber related skills with education content from the System Administration, Networking and Security Institution (SANS).
Danelle Ebreo
Don’t Cram Syllaplan
An application built from Python and Javascript that automatically extracts assignment dates from a syllabus into your Google Calendar.
Elise Schaengold
Protect Your Law Firm
A website designed to provide legal organizations in the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland with a central resource for educational cybersecurity tools and information. Her website enables organizations to implement best practice cyber security measures.
So What’s Next?
Scott Tambert, ’11 completed his masters program in 2013, and is the Director of IT Support Services at Marymount, and will continue to teach data networking at the university. Hassan Ahmed, ’15 and Colby Hunt, ’14 hope to pursue their masters degrees at GW and Stephanie Gomez, ’14 is considering her Ph.D.