Thomas Rowland was born and raised on the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawai’i, before enlisting in the Marines. He split his enlisted time between sunny 29 Palms, California and sunny Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Thomas has served as a junior researcher for Swords to Plowshares, a veterans non-profit focused on military justice, education and housing equity. Thomas will use his experience as a researcher and advocate for vulnerable populations in his cybersecurity research project. The effects of racial inequity and COVID-19 leave the Black community lacking the ability to detect, respond and recover from cyber threats. His research paper will examine how cyber threats from cyber criminal and state-nexus actors affect the Black community, ranging from fraud, malware and cyber-attacks to information operations.
