She works at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California, as director of its Networking and Cybersecurity Division.
Her parents divorced, and she moved frequently as a child; she discovered an interest in mathematics as a sixth-grade student in Laytonville, California, where her mother was living in a commune.
She credits Boston University professor Harvey Deitel with beginning her shift in interests from mathematics to computer science.
She applied to continue at Boston University for a Ph.D., and enrolled in the program, but eventually stopped out with just the master's degree.
[3] While in the doctoral program, she learned about recent research in mathematical methods in computer security through a graduate seminar.