12 Journey COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

From SIPA Student to Cyber Professionalâ€"CJ Dixons Cyber 9/12 Journey COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog In November 2019, SIPA hosted the fourth annual  Atlantic Council Cyber 9/12 Strategy Challenge  in New York City. Planned and run by SIPA’s Digital and Cyber Group, this year’s event featured 31 teams from 18 different schools including Tufts, Harvard, Georgetown, NYU, West Point, and the University of Pennsylvania. Each team was tasked with developing policy recommendations to respond to a rapidly developing cyber incident at both the local and federal level. The teams were judged by experts including former Homeland Security Advisor Tom Bossert, former Deputy National Security Advisor and Deputy Director of the CIA Avril Haines, and senior executives from numerous private sector entities. CJ Dixon (MIA ’19), a member of the winning team in 2018, returned to judge this year’s competition in his new role as a senior advisor at NYC Cyber Command. CJ took several cybersecurity courses at SIPA, competed in both the NYC and DC Cyber 9/12 competitions, and served as a Google Public Policy Fellow following graduation. CJ’s journey is a great example of how  SIPA’s Tech Policy Initiative  provides students with the  academic and professional preparation to pursue cybersecurity and technology policy careers.