Student Spotlight: Asa Hess-Matsumoto

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Asa Hess-Matsumoto currently resides in sunny Southern California and is a USMC veteran and career changer, pivoting into tech after his time on active duty as a Direct Air Support Control Officer with an undergraduate degree in political science. Asa is a proud father of two beautiful boys, the first being born one month before he began his first semester at Georgia Tech, and the second late last year! Asa is currently employed as a Penetration Tester, “a kind of contracted ‘ethical hacking’, for PwC as a part of their cybersecurity offerings.”

[Computer science] enables upward mobility, enhances the human experience, and improves quality of life. The more you embrace its complexities, the more nuanced and creative you can be with it.

Asa was inspired to enroll in OMSCS because he wanted to pivot to tech and cybersecurity as a career, but he did not have any credentials field. He knew a degree would help, and Georgia Tech's OMSCS program offered both quality and affordability. Moreover, as a father and full-time employee, the asynchronous model provided Asa with the flexibility he needed. To Asa, computer science is an incredible field filled with opportunities to create and discover things that not even the imagination could capture. “It enables upward mobility, enhances the human experience, and improves quality of life. The more you embrace its complexities, the more nuanced and creative you can be with it,” Asa passionately stated. He also mentioned that he has really taken a shine to Quantum Computing, due to taking CS 8803-O13: Quantum Computing with Professor Qureshi. “It's one of the first times I've encountered a class where I've felt like I'm reaching the bleeding-edge of a subject; quantum computing is very much still in its infancy—most of the work I learn of resides more in the theoretical space than in anything that's of practical application to the layperson. It's really neat to realize that everything you're learning about is so emergent.”

An interesting fact about Asa is that in 2022, he was one of 19 students at Georgia Tech to complete the National Security Agency's Annual Codebreaker Challenge! Besides computer science, “Teaching would be a calling I would love to be a part of; my parents were university professors, and I've found it really satisfying to help in the orchestration of learning when the opportunities have arisen.” Who knows, maybe teaching computer science at Georgia Tech could be in his future? Another cool fact about Asa is that if he could collaborate with any person, it would be Clifford Stoll back in 1986! “Clifford Stoll incidentally discovered—and then tenaciously investigated—a KGB operative using his employer's network as an access point to breach U.S. military security. His work is one of the early examples of digital forensics and is captured in the book The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage.”

Teaching would be a calling I would love to be a part of; my parents were university professors, and I've found it really satisfying to help in the orchestration of learning when the opportunities have arisen.

Asa is particularly keen on expanding on the work introduced in CS 6265: Information Security Lab. Ever since he became interested in cybersecurity, Asa has found the folks who have presented their security research at conferences like DEFCON and Pwn2Own to be amazing. It would be a privilege for Asa to be a part of that, and he hopes to work on research he could present at these conferences. After graduation, since he is already gainfully employed, he is looking forward to reclaiming his time: “I became a father at around the same time I became a graduate student. Between both of those responsibilities, I haven't really had the time for my own personal interests and I'm really looking forward to that.”