An award winning team of students from Royal Holloway, University of London, have scooped another prestigious prize with leading cyber security publication, SC Magazine.

SC Awards Student of the Year 2018

The all-female team, from Royal Holloway’s Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security, picked up the award for Cyber Security Students of the Year at the 2018 SC Europe Awards ceremony in London on 5 June.

Following the team’s recent win at the Cyber 9/12 UK Student Challenge, the Cyber Security Students of the Year award celebrates current students pursuing degrees in cyber-security and cyber-security related fields.

Robert Carolina, of Royal Holloway’s Information Security Group and the team’s coach said: “I am immensely proud of Team CDT.

“Their victory in this year’s London Cyber 9/12 Competition was a testament to their dedication and teamwork.

“Their achievement should send a signal to the entire cyber security community about the power of using interdisciplinary teams to attack cyber security problems. I’m grateful that their achievement has been recognised with this prestigious award.”

The Royal Holloway team are:

Lydia Garms

Lydia completed a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 2014, before studying for a Master’s degree in Applicable Mathematics at the London School of Economics in 2015. She is currently studying for a PhD in Cyber Security at Royal Holloway as part of the Centre of Doctoral Training, focusing on cryptography. Lydia is originally from Newcastle.

Angela Heeler

Angela is a PhD student in ISG CDT having completed MSc in Information Security at Royal Holloway. Her first degree is in Mathematics and Computer Science, also from Royal Holloway. She worked for a large multi-national in the oil and gas sector and then spent 10 years living and working abroad. She has worked with and for small businesses for 15 years. Her research interest focuses on helping small businesses thrive along with the human aspects of security.

Georgia Crossland

Georgia studied Psychology at Royal Holloway and then obtained a Master’s at King’s College in Mental Health Studies, included a disaster response course. She is now a first year PhD student at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Cyber Security, and is interested in applying psychology to cyber security issues, with a particular focus on human factors and organisations.

Amy Ertan

Amy studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford before completing a Barclays graduate scheme. She is interested in interdisciplinary approaches to cybersecurity, including international relations and military defence studies, as well as behavioural and applied economic theory. She is keen to promote interdisciplinary cybersecurity policy and action while studying on Royal Holloway's CDT Cyber Security PhD programme, as well as greater collaboration between academia and industry organisations. She also works part-time as a Strategic Threat Intelligence analyst.