{"id":39032,"date":"2018-07-31T17:01:56","date_gmt":"2018-07-31T21:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/?p=39032"},"modified":"2018-07-31T17:03:03","modified_gmt":"2018-07-31T21:03:03","slug":"digital-forensics-expert-combines-love-of-puzzles-with-computer-savvy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/digital-forensics-expert-combines-love-of-puzzles-with-computer-savvy\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital forensics expert combines love of puzzles with computer savvy"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a spring weekend not long ago, Mary Ellen Kennel \u201884<\/strong>, her parents-in-law and her daughters, ages 4 and 8,\u00a0huddled in the playroom at her home, putting together a jigsaw puzzle. It was a picture of a bucolic farm scene\u00a0\u2013 horses, cows, a gravel lane and an old red barn \u2013 more reminiscent of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where she grew up in a conservative and TV-free home, than New York City, where she works in digital forensics for a large bank.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been, as Kennel recently wrote on her personal blog, \u201cquite a journey\u201d from the one place to the other. And yet, she continued: \u201cI haven\u2019t changed much, really.\u201d\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As an incident response specialist and digital forensic analyst, Kennel is a sort of digital age detective, responsible for getting to the bottom of things when someone causes mischief to a computer network. There are clues to track down, patterns to look for, and pieces to assemble into a coherent whole. Kennel has always loved puzzles, whether at home with her family or at work, hunting for evil over the wire.<\/p>\n

Read about more New York City-based alumni in the\u00a0current issue of Crossroads magazine<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

She came to the field by way of the television industry. A two-week temp-job stint filling in for a receptionist at The Joan Rivers Show<\/em> ended up lasting five years, followed by six more working on Ricki Lake<\/em>. During those years, she had time to explore a burgeoning interest in the computers that were fast becoming an important tool in the home and workplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn TV, you basically worked four hours a day and got paid for full-time,\u201d Kennel wrote in an email to Crossroads<\/em>. \u201cI started putting signs up in laundromats all over the city, offering my services as a freelance computer technician.\u201d<\/p>\n

After taking a number of courses at the SANS Institute (a big information security outfit) and a Columbia University certificate program, Kennel jumped full-time into the world of digital forensics. Through it all, from talk shows to tech, one constant has been the values that she grew up with.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing raised Mennonite, one of the core philosophies I was taught was a life of service,\u201d Kennel wrote.<\/p>\n

While many classmates and friends took that idea abroad with them as missionaries, Kennel began putting it to work in New York\u2019s soup kitchens and homeless shelters soon after she arrived.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve always felt that the city was my mission,\u201d she continued. \u201cI didn’t need to travel very far to find my calling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On a spring weekend not long ago, Mary Ellen Kennel \u201884, her parents-in-law and her daughters, ages 4 and 8,\u00a0huddled in the playroom at her home, putting together a jigsaw ... read more about Digital forensics expert combines love of puzzles with computer savvy<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39033,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[266,13808,17562],"tags":[],"feature":[17427,17426,17241,17422],"class_list":["post-39032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-computer-science","category-digest","feature-emu-home-page-feature","feature-myemu-feature","feature-news-feature","feature-news-landing-page-main-feature"],"yoast_head":"\nDigital forensics expert combines love of puzzles with computer savvy - EMU News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/news\/2018\/digital-forensics-expert-combines-love-of-puzzles-with-computer-savvy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Digital forensics expert combines love of puzzles with computer savvy - 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