UMass Amherst student blazes an impressive, nontraditional path in cybersecurity
As a white-hat hacker, cybersecurity student Thao Trinh ’21 catches criminals and finds bugs
When she arrived as an international student at UMass Amherst, Thao Trinh ’21 recalls her excitement, anxiety, and deep desire to excel. As a first-year student from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 2017, she aspired to study ethical computer hacking, known as white-hat hacking.
Four years later, supported in so many ways by the UMass community, she is in her final semester, having just completed the highly selective Cybersecurity Mentorship Pilot Program sponsored by the MassCyberCenter. This state program supports diversity and resiliency in the cybersecurity sector, and matched Trinh with a research expert at MIT’s elite Lincoln Laboratory.
December 9, 2020
Thao Trinh
When an international student arrives on campus, she is a bundle of emotions – including a big willingness to try hard and give it her best shot, recalls computer science major Thao Trinh, who arrived as a first-year student from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, in 2017 wanting to study white-hat hacking.
Her English and communication skills were shaky back then, the now-confident Trinh acknowledges, but she says she need not have worried – the campus community came through for her with solid support. “A lot of people here helped me to make it,” she says. “I have come a really long way.”