Nikki Robinson, IBM

Trac Bannon: 

It’s kind of funny, our first conversation was when I was a guest on Chris and Nikki’s podcast called Resilient Cyber. How did they meet? Well, the same way that I met Chris Hughes, on LinkedIn. Yep. It is a real thing. We met on a professional social networking platform. For about two years, we’ve floated in and out of each other’s networks and have an ever-growing set of real connections.

In getting to know Nikki and her work, she was a natural pick as a guest for Real Technologists. On our first attempt to record, Nikki’s sound quality was inconsistent and started breaking up. She said, “Hold on. Let me try something.” She tinkered ,and I waited. “How’s that now?” “Nope. You’re still breaking up.”

She tinkered and I waited. Different laptop, different headset. 

I like this woman, I thought. Very determined to fix this tech issue. As it turns out, her podcasting machine serves double purpose as her gaming rig. We agreed to try again in a week to give time to figure out the problem or come up with some alternative solution.

In doing a little pre-work before we spoke, Nikki gave me the same frustration as many other cybersecurity pros: not much about her life or journey aside from very focused cybersecurity insights. Dr. Nikki Robinson only posts on LinkedIn and does not use other social platforms. 

Essentially, the only way to learn about Nikki was to have the chat. “Game on”

1 week later we reconnected. She had uninstalled a few games and applied a new driver or two. I found Nikki to be delightful, energetic, and accomplished.

So much so that the average human like me has to intentionally and actively focus on not comparing myself to this duracell bunny. I did need to ask her the source of her superpowers. Chocolate covered espresso beans. Damn… I wonder if they make a keto friendly version? 

Nikki was born and bred on the East Coast, Maryland, to be specific and still professes a love of her state. Growing up, she showed all the classic signs of being a high achiever. She worked throughout high school and was in a band. Not the band, a band, the kind that practices in basements or garages. 

Dr. Nikki Robinson: 

I sang and played the guitar and played the drums, and I also played chess. I was very big into musical theater, so I was really like the full circle nerd… you know, really, really full circle. I loved video games. 

Trac Bannon: 

You are listening to Real Technologists. I’m your host, Trac Bannon, coming to you from Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Each week we choose a unique guest behind leading Edge Tech innovation to explore their genuine stories, their true journeys. Technology touches nearly every aspect of our lives. It’s being driven by diverse perspectives and experiences of real humans.

You’re in the right spot to hear about the real technologists reshaping our world. Stay tuned for stories that will give you something to noodle on.

By Miriam Webster’s definition, I’d call her a renaissance man: “a person who has wide interests and is an expert in several areas.” 

When it was time to choose a college, Nikki was clear on her major: Psychology. It wasn’t a high school class that piqued her interest, it was the brother of a high school friend who suffered from schizophrenia. 

Dr. Nikki Robinson: 

So I had a friend in high school who… her brother was schizophrenic, and she would tell me what it was like living with him, the things that he would see and experience. I just thought, man, how can we not help someone like him? How could we not make his life a little easier and make his family’s lives a little easier? How have we not figured this out yet?

Trac Bannon: 

Wow. That’s both empathetic and focused for an 18 year old. Nikki applied and was accepted by George Mason University. Her grades were fine but the on-campus school environment was not the solution for her. She took a rather bold step for the early 2000s and transitioned to an online school. 

While I would call that a leading edge decision, today, given the number of well-established online degree programs, in 2005, it was not the case.

Dr. Nikki Robinson: 

I had a lot of people when I left George Mason, they were like, oh, you’re never gonna finish school… You’re definitely not getting a Bachelor’s degree… You’re not gonna find a job. And I was like, on campus just didn’t work for me. You know what? I’m out. So for me, online school made so much more sense. 

Trac Bannon: 

Her next step was to enroll at the University of Phoenix online. Looking for closure, she found she could take her George Mason credits and apply them quickly for an Associate’s Degree in General Studies. The idea of online studies took on extra importance when Nikki and her high school sweetheart moved to Pennsylvania. He was going to be taking a year of schooling. For him, this had to be in person. This was training to be a sought after master mechanic. 

Dr. Nikki Robinson: 

He went to Universal Technical Institute. He’s a master technician, he’s a mechanic. And so he went to school for a year and it worked out great because I wanted to do online school anyway and start working.

Trac Bannon: 

Nikki’s pattern of “Yes/Then” started to emerge. Yes, I’ll get my associates, then I’ll keep going. For a Bachelor’s degree… Yes, I’ll earn my undergraduate, then I’ll chase an accelerated Master’s. 

That’s right, this espresso beam gnawing dynamo is never satisfied or content. For Nikki, there’s always a next step. As she completed her associate’s degree, she was working in parallel as an administrative assistant for the director of an HR organization. She began searching for her next yes/then and decided to pursue her Bachelor’s degree.

But what to major in? Her first love had been psychology so she sought out a mentor, her boss from the HR department. His wife was a trained and licensed psychologist. 

Dr. Nikki Robinson: 

And so I talked to him and his wife happened to be a psychiatrist. I told him, which is why I asked him… I said, you know, I’m thinking about psychology… but I’m kind of thinking about IT. And he was like, what in the world is wrong with you? Go with IT. Do not go into psychology. You’re gonna be in school for 15 years. Of course, I was still ended up being in school for 15 years in a different direction, but he was really the one that was like, no, go into IT, it’s gonna be a great career for you. You’ll be super interesting.

Trac Bannon: 

Those simple conversations that become catalyst moments; at the time were unaware of the dramatic lifelong impact. Her HR employer became like family and continued to help her.

She credits him directly with the decisions she made that have taken her to where her career is now. 

Yes, she earned the Associate’s Degree, then a bachelor’s in IT and software engineering. While she was finishing her undergraduate degree, it was her mentor who helped her get her first IT help desk role.

With her undergrad degree in hand. She took a small break to focus on that IT role. In her early 20s, and with that love of chocolate covered espresso beans, she quickly worked her way to system administrator. 

Yes, she was working in it and then, she decided it was time for more beans and a Master’s degree. Why? In her help desk and system admin role, she had strong IT management and thought a Master’s degree would help her to become an IT manager. 

Finding another online institution, Capital College, classes in IT Management started. Being introspective, Nikki realized she personally liked to be a technical leader and she enjoyed being hands-on. The die was cast and she took coursework for her master’s degree studies that would keep her technical edge. She chose Information and Telecommunications System Management, graduating in 2013. 

By now, at the grand old age of 25, she was married to her high school sweetheart, with a career in technology armed with a graduate degree and living back in her beloved Maryland. She took a job with ActioNet as a Citrix Engineer. 

She stayed focused on Citrix for the next 5 plus years while stretching and taking on infrastructure architecture responsibilities. 

This was where she began her real exposure to some of the core aspects of security and access control. Curiously, that young teen who wanted to study psychology had a knack for thinking about the impact of technology and process on people.

One of her responsibilities was adjudicating vulnerability reports. Her national tendency was to fix everything but she was guided to focus on the highs and the criticals. When she tackled the criticals and highs, she started to look at the lows and the mediums. She asked insightful questions to find out what these lower marks meant, their context, and why they were scored the way that they were.

She was not satisfied with the focus on critical and high and began to wonder why the lows and mediums were overlooked. Why didn’t people care about them? 

Dr. Nikki Robinson: 

I think this has been probably one of the things that has taken me through my career. I’ll ask these questions These seem so interesting, and they’re still highly exploitable in some cases, so how are we not interested in this?

And so diving deep into what vulnerabilities mean, their context, how they’re actually scored, you know, that was really what sparked my interest. And I said, I need to be having these conversations, but from the other side of the table. I need to get into security because I want to try to figure out how we can make vulnerability management easier for IT practitioners.

Trac Bannon: 

Nikki’s nonstop energy is incredible. While working and growing her role as a Citrix expert, she and her husband also had two children. The Yes/Then pattern emerges again and again. 

Yes, rapid growth and exposure at her career, and then she has children. 

Yes, she has these beautiful children, and then begins her quest for a doctoral degree. 

Her passion to find ways to make vulnerability management easier, to find answers to her own questions, to research the intersection of humans and technology drove her to pick cybersecurity as her doctoral program from Capital Technology University. 

She loves to research and to write, making her an ideal doctoral student. She is also constantly observing and evaluating. While earning her PhD in cybersecurity, she made a strategic job change mid doctoral program with a company called XLA as a Senior Cybersecurity Engineer.

Yes, then… 

I don’t know about you, but I’m blown away by how much she does. When we spoke, and again, when I listened to our recorded conversation, I got mentally exhausted trying to keep pace with her constant energy even just listening. 

Something happened, though, something that has caused a near explosion in Nikki’s thought leadership. It was a mix of finishing her first PhD in 2019 and the lockdowns. 

And yes, I did say her first PhD. 

For some reason, it was earning her PhD that really boosted he self confidence and mixed with the uncertainty the world faced with the lockdowns, she decided to try new things and really stretch herself.

Dr. Nikki Robinson: 

I started building up some confidence. I wanted to share my research. I wanted to, sort of put myself out there a little bit more and… share my research, share my voice, you know, a little bit with people.

And I feel like the pandemic for me really, it was just like, you know what? We don’t know what’s going to happen… and it very real, we lost my grandfather during that time, near the beginning of Covid. And for me it was like really… who knows how much time we have here? I wanna get another degree… I wanna be able to teach, I wanna share the information I have, as best as I can with people and I wanna try new things. 

Trac Bannon: 

Between 2020 and 2023, Nikki has written and published a book, earned a second PhD in Human Factors, and launched a podcast that was just for starters.

She is now an adjunct professor for Capital Technology University, joined a prestigious think tank, ICIT, the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology. She’s a fellow there. She even has two patents awarded in late 2022 and has landed a new job as a security architect for a global corporation.

With all this energy, all this thought leadership driving continual improvement in cybersecurity. Nikki still has a very empathetic and human side. Thinking back on her own experiences and choices, she would counsel her younger self to trust her own instincts. 

Dr. Nikki Robinson: 

I would say trust yourself, trust your intuition, trust the decisions that you’re making. I ask those questions and I usually get a lot of pushback, but every time I’ve asked those questions or I’ve raised my hand to volunteer for something, even when someone told me, oh, don’t do that, or don’t do that… you don’t wanna do that.

Every time I’ve raised my hand and every time I volunteered to do something and trusted my gut, it has led to incredible things.

Trac Bannon: 

When you ask about the future She responds that her interests and focus seem to change and grow about every six months. She’s expanding the type of writing that she does from academic to more blog style with a broader potential reach. No doubt there will be chocolate covered espresso beans along the way. I did manage to press Nicki for the source of those magic beans: Trader Joe’s. 

With all these of personal accomplishments, you might think Nikki is an island unto herself. That’s not the case. She mentors young women who are interested in entering cybersecurity whether college bound or career focused, individuals both reach out and are referred to her by her ever-growing network. Perhaps even more compelling is she continues to focus on humans in the loop… the people we meet and work with.

Dr. Nikki Robinson: 

I feel like are really important that we don’t, some people talk about it, but I don’t hear it enough, is how important kindness is in the technology field. There’s a lot of really smart people out there. 

You can be smart and you can be kind at the same time, you don’t have to be smart and… maybe pushy or mean. You can be smart and you can be kind, and I think that kindness is something that we really need, especially in the technology base because we all, at the end of the day, have to work together.

And that’s all that really matters is we work well together.

Trac Bannon: 

And that’s a wrap for today’s episode of Real Technologists. I want to thank my guest, Nikki Robinson for sharing her story. Your insights and experiences are truly inspiring. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share them with the audience. This podcast is a Sourced Network production and updates are available weekly on your favorite audio streaming platform. Just search for real technologists and consider subscribing. Special thanks to our executive producer, Mark Miller, for making this show possible. Our editor and sound engineer, Pokie Huang has done an amazing job bringing this story to life. Thank you both. The music for today’s episode was provided by Blue Dot Sessions, and we use Descript for spoken text editing and audacity for the soundscaping. The show distribution platform is provided by CaptivateFM making it easy for our listeners to find and enjoy the show. 

That’s all for today, folks. This is Trac Bannon. Don’t forget to tune in next week for another intriguing episode of Real Technologists and something new to noodle on.