Katherine Rackliffe

About Me

My name is Katherine. I'm studying cybersecurity at BYU. I'm also in the BYU Honors program, where I'm learning how to research. I'm currently working on my Honors thesis about vishing messages.

Pixel me

Research

I've worked in research since when I first started as a freshman at BYU, in 2021. I started with the BYU Engineering Together program, where I primarily worked with Professor Derek Hansen. This is a paper about asymmetric virtual reality games that I worked on. I helped with the workshops we studied, much of the writing, and the data analysis.

I worked in the Immerse program for two summers. This program has BYU engineering students work in research full-time. For the summer of 2023, I worked on the asymmetric virtual reality paper. For the summer of 2024, I worked on my Honors thesis. Right now, I'm working on a research project with Professor Brandt Redd, my thesis, and a small workshop study for an advanced human-computer interaction class.

I'm working on applying for grad schools right now. I want to work towards a doctorate in human-computer interaction and specialize in cybersecurity research.

Research skills

  • Grant writing
  • Data analysis
  • Presenting research
  • Writing
  • Prototyping (Figma, HCI artifacts, etc.)

Technical work

I've worked frequently on web development. I started out by working on a website for the Virtual Reality lab, using Brightspot.

I also worked on a website for BYU's language exam registration. This site ran on PHP. I fixed security issues and presented about these security issues during BYU's cybersecurity symposium.

I started working as a TA for IT&C 210, Web systems + security. I help students with their websites. I've spent a lot of time debugging AWS.

Technical skills

  • PHP, AWS
  • HTML, CSS, Javascript
  • Python, C++, C
  • Teaching
  • Technical documentation

Extracurriculars

  • I helped with BYU's cybersecurity youth camps for three years, by teaching classes and helping students
  • Competitions: Hack the building, VIVID, CPTC, and assorted CTFs.
  • I'm currently president of BYU's Women in Cybersecurity chapter. I plan activities and mentor students in the cybersecurity program.

Conferences

Here are some cool conferences I've been to!

  • SAINTCON 2024 (Presented about my honors thesis, find more information )
  • Women in Cybersecurity 2023 (Denver) and 2024 (Nashville)
  • XR Southern Summit 2023 (Helped with a presentation about the VR research)
  • Society of Women Engineers 2022, Albuquerque

Other random (relevant) skills I have

  • Soldering
  • Canva
  • Making an old HL5040 Brother printer (older than I am) work
  • Excel

Random (unrelevant) skills I have

  • Painting
  • Mandolin
  • Embroidery
  • Writing Goodreads reviews