Shawn Briere

Before I worked in the cyber security I was a psychologist. I have always been

interested in how humans think and react to different situations. In my time at

the University of Arizona I majored in psychology and was particularly fascinated

in social psychology. I took all the classes the university had to offer in social

psychology and became a research assistant for one of the social psychology

professor. After college, I began working in several roles related to my degree

including as a counselor for the mentally ill. After about 5 years I decided to

switch careers into cyber security. I went back to school and got a few

certifications, including a CCNA and a Security+. After finding a job, I worked my

way up very quickly in my current company and got promoted into a role in the IT

security department. Although psychology and cyber security may appear

different, the two fields compliment themselves well because many attacks and

attackers rely on techniques borrowed from psychology. Due to my background in

psychology, learning how attacks against machines and humans that control those

machines came very easy to me. Today I use my previous experience in

psychology to help me in my current role to look for attacks and stop them.