Girlstart’s Women in STEM weekly series highlights various women who are making a difference in STEM. Be inspired as these incredible women describe how they became interested in their field, provide insight into a day in the life, and share learnings from their experiences.

Marcae Bryant-Omosor

Software Engineer @ USAA

Marcae has volunteered with Girlstart at previous events and enjoyed mentoring and sharing her story with the participants. We are thrilled that she is doing the same today by inspiring an even bigger audience through our Women In STEM Blog!

What sparked your interest and made you want to volunteer with Girlstart?
Girlstart shares a similar vision that I am passionate about that address’s emergent needs within our city, state, and national fronts. Mentoring our most precious resources to craft the desire, passion, and skills necessary to lead our nation across all facets of STEM-driven industries. Having a strong support system is essential to the root of their success and leaders today must own our position in promoting their success. Strategically and intentionally surrounding young girls so that they can envision themselves in the driver seat one day and building them up by equipping them with vital resources to be successful. This is me doing my part; teamwork is key as we must work cohesively.

Can you briefly describe what you do?
I am a tenacious problem solver, solving today’s IT challenges to effectively identify, protect, mitigate, and harden the company’s network from unwanted attackers to protect the company’s most valuable data, and sensitive information resources. This can be done from many paths from software application development, network cyber defense, internet of things, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other choices depending on personal interests.

What are your favorite things about your career?
For me, I am a change agent, advocate, mentor, software engineer, and speaker that will continue to make a difference in community, state, and national endeavors pertaining to nation security, cyber-infrastructure, and cybersecurity workforce diversity and equity. Through empowerment, I enjoy solving critical problems of today and offering time-centered solutions that make a difference on all levels. Whether I get to develop secure coding practices, protect a network node that is attacked working, or tuning the latest machine learning model my job is never boring for me. Each task helps to protect our friends, families, or neighbors from cyber attackers and preserve our personal information as we continue in the digital age.

Was there a specific person or program in your life that encouraged you to pursue your STEM career?
Two esteemed professors from the University of South Florida spearheaded the Youth for Engineering Society that ignited my passion for math, science and computers. I spent many Saturday mornings from 9AM – 12PM working on advanced math problems, computer programming, and science experiments that pushed my mind and challenged me to think critically, problem solve, and never give up on my dreams.

What advice would you like to give girls who are interested in pursuing a STEM career?
For future young women seeking STEM opportunities and careers, I would encourage them to embrace the following strategies: (1) adopt a learning-by-doing strategy; (2) seek sponsorships to help empower personal growth; (3) invest in short-term and long-term goal-setting plan; (4) don’t let anyone derail you from accomplishing your goals; (5) truly embrace full engagement and immersion within your goal plan at any opportunity.

Why is confidence in STEM important for girls?
Confidence is a foundational pillar and plays a major role for women of any age as we effectively navigate our career journeys. Confidence helps to ignite conviction that girls can secure and do well in STEM careers. Also, confidence helps girls embrace knew opportunities and challenges, participate in networking and sponsorship programs, and design valuable professional development plans that help propel careers. However, girls must believe that they can do the job, advance their knowledge, and strategically align goals for promotion and growth of which confidence is the key to achieving this mindset.

Is there anything else you would like to share? Any other words of encouragement?
Barriers and obstacles will certainly creep into our paths; however, I have developed the following mindset and processes to help me overcome. For me, investing in a love for reading coupled with a zest to learn new things has remained with me from the beginning. Therefore, I would recommend others to adopt such a game plan combined with participating purposefully in networking, creating authentic personal development plans, and above all “DO IT” anyway. Meaning even if you don’t know, even if you’re not sure, even if you are afraid…DO IT anyway. At the end of the day, chalk this experience up to growing pains and get back up and try again. Without failure there is no success.

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