At The Leahy Center, we often talk about our mission to educate the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. Our internship opportunities, paired with Champlain’s widely recognized cyber program, push students further in an ever-changing field.
But what does this idea look like in practice? How can we make sure the next generation will look after their next generation?
Professor LaKysha Patnode may have the answer.
Information, Assured
“So I guess, let’s start with what classes do you teach, and which is your favorite?”
“So I teach Network Protocols, Information Assurance, and Automation And Scripting. And I would say I have two favorites: I like Information Assurance because that’s what I did for the entirety of my career, and then I enjoy Automation and Scripting because I find it really really challenging, which is good for some things… Network Protocols is good too, but it’s very automated in Canvas… I like to be more hands-on [with the curriculum.]”
Before becoming a full-time professor at Champlain, Professor Patnode worked at NuHarbor Security as an expert in information assurance. Her two years in leadership have informed her choices as a professor.
As she said, information assurance is her specialty. At NuHarbor, she protected the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of client information for the last five years. Working in information assurance involved client consulting, strategic long-term planning, and a surprising amount of leadership. So communication, strategy, financial literacy, and leadership skills can significantly help.
Patnode’s Career Pathway
“I started as an Information Assurance Analyst …if a client [said] ‘I really want a new security tool that will do X,’ I would tell them all the pros and cons of that tool and then they would make a choice…
“After that, I moved up to Analyst II, which was more [about] strategically planning things. So I was specifically responsible for a client and their security program, so if they came to me and [said] ‘OK, so this is how long we have until the next audit, and this is what we need to get done between now and then,’ it was my job to figure out how that [was going to] happen. So, say they needed to buy that tool, they needed to come up with an incident response plan and test it, and then they needed to create a new set of policies—I would figure out when the most appropriate time is to do each of those things, and then usually do those things as well with another analyst.”
After this, Patnode rose to leadership positions within NuHarbor. For the next year and two months, she worked as an Information Assurance Team Lead. For the next nine months after that, she worked as an Information Assurance Supervisor. If that wasn’t enough, she was also working part-time as a professor at Champlain.
Women in Cybersecurity: Oh, The Places You’ll Go
“I heard you may have some involvement with the 2024 Women in Cyber Summit?”
“Yes,” Patnode said. “I am leading a panel this year, last year I was on a panel, this year I’m leading a panel, hopefully next year I’ll be helping to plan it but we’ll see. The panel is called “Oh, The Places You’ll Go.” So it’s focused mainly on jobs, what you need to get those jobs, that kind of information, and it’ll be really good for students, and even for students who are not female-identifying. So I encourage everybody to go, it’ll be a good time.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t able to go last year, I’ll have to go this time!” I said.
“Yeah, you should!” Patnode continued, “I think it’s amazing that Champlain was so quick to react to the request from the Women in Cyber Council. I think it shows their commitment to making this a better place for female-identifying students, and I think that’s something that you’re not seeing everywhere. It’s nice to see Champlain leading that charge.”
Patnode’s Advice For Emerging Professionals
Patnode also offered some advice for students trying to get into information assurance. She highlighted skills like technical communication and compliance frameworks.
“So I guess [to get into information assurance or risk assessment,] being able to tie together what security means to us and then what it means to a business person is probably the most critical skill you’ll ever have. Because a lot of what information assurance is, is doing things like control assessments and risk assessments which are really tools to prioritize the spending of the business on cybersecurity. You need to be able to [say,] ‘OK, so this risk equates to this for your business. If this happens, this is bad because of XYZ.’
“And you need to be able to do it in a way that’s comprehensible and doesn’t scare them. You don’t want to scare them from spending on security, or scare them into spending on security, but you want to show them the importance of that particular security control. Being able to translate security speaking to normal-people speak is critical.
“Another skill [I’d recommend is] understanding compliance frameworks in general. If someone asks you what NIST-800-171 is, knowing that it’s a framework that’s mostly used for protecting unclassified information. You don’t need to know the specific controls, but understanding common frameworks will help you if you ever want to get into information assurance. [Those] might be NIST-800-171, NIST-800-73, NIST-800-30 for risk assessment, CIS Top 18, and maybe IRS Pub 1075—maybe. That last one’s pretty specific.”
One Problem, A Million Solutions
Getting into tech is intimidating, and often demands tenacity. Cybersecurity requires a great deal of problem-solving skills, beyond just learning a few software. And the industry is going to change, without a doubt, within the next ten years. That’s why Patnode favors hands-on education.
“I think problem-solving is definitely critical, and I think Champlain again is the place, at least in my opinion, to learn about it… [the program] is so hands-on and so lab-based, and I think you learn much better problem-solving in a lab than you do in theory.”
One thing Patnode enjoys about teaching is how different students learn differently. In an industry like cyber, where there are multiple solutions to problems, individual approaches really change things up.
It’s easy to forget that the future of the industry lies with individuals. Individuals with different thought processes, passions, and experiences. All these individuals hold a universal connection: everyone in cyber five, ten, twenty years from now will be informed by their actions today.
Patnode had passions for cybersecurity, music, and education in high school, and she thought she had to choose just one. But a professor empowered her to push her limits, and helped her realize she could chase all of them.
“David Ginter, Ginter was my teacher in high school for two years, which was great, and he showed me that I could do [all] of my passions. I could do music to some degree, I could teach to some degree, and I could be in cyber. Encouraging people to go after things despite the impracticality of them is so important. And encouraging people to do more than one thing. So anyways, that’s what landed me at Champlain, and now I’m back.”
“So what are your principles for educating the next generation?” I said. “Because like, Ginter was your professor previously, I guess I was wondering about your thoughts on educating the next generation.”
“I think it’s one of the most important things you can do,” Patnode said, “and I think there isn’t one way to teach in that sense. Like, everybody gets something different out of each lecture, which is interesting, and can be challenging, but as long as everyone leaves the college with the tools that they need to succeed in an evolving field. We don’t want to teach them just Tenable because what are the chances that every single organization that they’re going to go to uses Tenable? I think the way I like to teach is not [to teach] how to do a specific thing, but [to teach] how to figure out how to do a specific thing.”
When the industry has a changing of the guard, the people who will educate the next guard also change. In this way, educating the next generation isn’t just an investment in the next few decades. It’s an investment in the cycle of passing cyber knowledge from generation to generation. Patnode is doing more than her part to invest in this mission.
“I decided after five years in the industry, I really wanted to go back and try to teach, because I think I wanted to come in with some level of experience for the students and be able to back up the claims that I make in my classes. But I also wanted to change that next generation, and create people who can problem-solve and who can identify new threats and who can think about risk in a way that goes with the way the industry is evolving.”
By Briar Gagne ’26, Professional Writing
Briar Gagne specializes in technical writing and copywriting, with a strong focus in cybersecurity topics.