In 2015, Adam Wong ’16 was part of a UNH team that participated in a nationwide cyber analyst challenge for college students aimed at testing their ability to thwart cyberattacks.

After commencement, he will be putting his skills to work for real at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory, a Department of Defense research and development center that deals with problems of national security.

Wong was hired as an IT security operations analyst, part of a group dedicated to mitigating threats to the laboratory network and infrastructure.

“I will look for indicators of compromise,” says Wong, who majored in information technology. “I’ll have to ask myself: Is this normal? Who's trying to harm the network? What’s their motive? What are they doing and how do I stop them?

“We have to think and stay a step ahead of the bad guys,” he adds. “As one of my previous supervisors said, ‘It is a war.’”

A member of the National Guard since 2012, Wong was named NH Soldier of the Year in 2015. Now a radar operator with Echo TAB, 197th Field Artillery Regiment, Wong hopes to align his IT career with his National Guard role.