Hi! I’m Karlynn Riccitelli, and I’m a rising Junior in the School of Computing and Information, as well as the David C. Frederick Honors College. I am currently majoring in Digital Narrative and Interactive Design, as well as pursuing a minor in Italian along with a certificate in Digital Media. I am a sister of Sigma Delta Tau, and am also very involved with Pitt Dance Marathon, serving as the Social Media chair last year and the Graphics chair this upcoming year. Outside of school, I enjoy watching movies, listening to music, and exploring the city of Pittsburgh with my friends.
This summer, I am participating in the SHURE-Grid research fellowship. This is a program held through the David C. Frederick Honors College in conjunction with the Idaho National Laboratory, one of only seventeen national laboratories funded by the US Department of Energy. SHURE-Grid focuses on cybersecurity and on driving the education of CIE (cyber informed engineering) principles. In the most basic sense, CIE principles emphasize thinking about cybersecurity risks at every step of the engineering process, rather than just as an afterthought after the product has been created. The goal by the end of the summer is to create educational material on this topic that can be added to cybersecurity curriculums at not only Pitt but other universities as well. We have 4 teams of 4 students each working under the mentorship of a large group of faculty with a wide range of academic backgrounds. Each team of students include a student with a technical background, an engineering student who creates an engineering lab, a media student who creates an educational background, and a political science student who focuses on a policy aspect. Each team will research and produce material about two different use cases by the end of the summer.
For my team’s first use case, we are focusing on cybersecurity risks in healthcare. If you think about it, a hacker being able to change levels on any medical device could have drastic and quite possibly fatal consequences. So, it’s extremely important to identify risks and vulnerabilities and try to find a solution that uses CIE principles to minimize the risks and consequences of that happening. This is a problem that can apply to any medical device, but for this first use case my team and I are specifically focusing on insulin pumps. We are researching how to fend off a hacking attack where a hacker might jump onto the connection between a programmer and an insulin pump and change the dosage levels, causing great harm to the patient. Each week we present our research progress on our specific topic, and the faculty gives us feedback which could include new source materials to look into, or contacts of people to reach out to for an interview.
While I haven’t quite narrowed down one path for after graduation, I know that the skills I am learning now will help me greatly towards any professional goals I might pursue. First and foremost, I chose a major that is at its core interdisciplinary. DNID combines coursework in computer science and classes in the English department. This curriculum, coupled with my certificate in Digital Media, is allowing me a broad expanse of knowledge on all things media and technology and even communication. I am extremely interested in going into some kind of interdisciplinary role for my career where I can work on a team of people, whether I work with something like UX Design or even virtual reality. The SHURE-Grid fellowship is a complete interdisciplinary program, and it’s giving me the opportunity to see what it’s like working on a team of people with different backgrounds. Not only that, but the program is also allowing me to practice with skills like conducting interviews, and also presenting technical information to an audience. The SHURE-Grid program is giving me many skills that I will carry with me to my professional career.