About Hi, I'm Ella.

How I Got Here

I grew up moving around a lot, spending part of my childhood in Europe, but have spent most of my life in New England. Most recently, I have called Maine home, attending high school there, where I grew into my interests in political science and computer science. I chose to attend Clark University, knowing my intended majors, because I valued the liberal arts education, making the choice to prioritize an education that would make me a well-rounded individual and give me an interdisciplinary approach. During my time at Clark, I took advantage of the study abroad program, spending a year studying in Scotland, at the University of Stirling, taking classes in both my majors, and exploring other interests and travelling whenever I could.

My Fields

Why I Do What I Do

The first comment I often get after being asked what I am studying is "huh, computer science and political science are completely unrelated."

While at first glance, computer science and political science seem to share no similarities, at a closer look, like many things, connections can be drawn. I am interested in cybersecurity topics of data privacy, cyber law, and cyber warfare. In political science, I am interested in voter rights, government procedures, and legal justice. As our world becomes increasingly more online, those issues of cybersecurity become more prevalent in our politics and will begin to affect the rights of individuals.

Throughout my courses so far, I have been able to combine my interests in my research and projects, analyzing political data through programs I designed, and discussing the impact of the cyber laws we have so far, and how they need to be adapted as technology advances. My research has involved analyzing the data privacy regulations of various international organizations, as well as the impacts AI has had and will continue to have on US national security concerns and international, global relations.

I am a quick learner, with a strong self-motivation and level-headed management of my work when under pressure or in stressful situations. I excel in my ability to work independently, and with limited direction, but also enjoy and thrive working in a team environment. I have strong communication skills with both coworkers and customers, skills I have developed and strengthened in my time in customer service.

A Few More Words About Myself

Most recently in my final year at Clark I took on a leadership position as Vice President of Clark Competitive Computing Club (C4). This club is one of the tech focused clubs on campus. Our goal was to create a community amongst computer science students at Clark, supporting students throughout the program and through their career searches. We held many different events, from panels, to workshops, to student get-togethers. We were also very passionate about making computer science more diverse and accessible for different groups, to this end we regularly held outreach events to teach coding to young students in the Worcester community, partnering with other Clark clubs, and other events (our "Code@Clark" series) to help members of the Clark community become more comfortable with tech skills. When I stepped into the role, I knew one of the areas I wanted to work on was community outreach. My interest started in CS because of a required coding class in high school and a field trip to IBM to see their programs focusing on women in tech. From that moment, everything clicked and I knew what I wanted. All it takes is one moment to introduce the right kid to the right field, and my hope was that by exposing kids in Worcester to tech, through our outreach events, teaching coding through Lego Education Robot kits, that at least person would find something they really loved. The hope also was that with our E-Board of mostly women, and people of color, that these kids could see themselves in this field and see a future doing this. This is an idea I also tried to carry into the rest of our club events on campus, hoping to bring more women and people of color into the major, and show them that if I can do it, succeed, and hold leadership, that they could too. One of our major events we held every semester is our 48-hour hackathons. The hackathons we hosted while I was Vice President were major successes, garnering projects that have been promoted around campus as actionable solutions, and gaining much more attention and praise from across campus for our small, but mighty, computer science department.