Cybersecurity student at Brigham Young University, CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service scholar, focused on AI/LLM security, systems hardening and security research.

LinkedIn · ORCID 0009-0002-1844-5799

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Education

Brigham Young University

M.S. Cybersecurity · Beginning September 2027 · Provo, UT

Brigham Young University

B.S. Cybersecurity, Minor in Mathematics · Expected April 2027 · Provo, UT GPA 3.95 / 4.0

  • CyberCorps® Scholarship for Service (SFS), eligible for federal direct hire
  • Net-Sec Lead, Cybersecurity Student Association (CSA)
  • Technology Lead, Adaptive Show Choir (Y-Serve), a performing arts program for people with adaptive needs

Experience

Zeta Associates, Security Intern

May 2026 – August 2026 · Fairfax, VA

  • Conducted adversarial security assessments of large language models using automated red-team scanning (garak) across 66+ attack probes in an air-gapped environment, measuring attack success rates against agentic and RAG systems.
  • Evaluated and deployed AI defensive tooling (LLM Guard, NeMo Guardrails) as FastAPI gateways; authored formal written risk assessments and recommendations on guardrail effectiveness for stakeholders.
  • Engineered self-hosted LLM audit infrastructure with custom gateway proxies and full trace instrumentation (Langfuse, OpenTelemetry), capturing per-user attribution across RAG and agentic workloads.
  • Deployed and hardened on-prem LLM serving on Kubernetes (vLLM, NVIDIA DRA GPU scheduling, Keycloak SSO, RBAC) in a restricted network environment.
  • Built distributed data pipelines and persistent storage (Kubernetes PVCs) for high-volume telemetry, with Prometheus/Grafana monitoring across clusters.

BYU ECEN Department, Teaching Assistant

January 2024 – May 2026 · Provo, UT

  • Proposed, created and deployed cybersecurity labs used to train 100+ students.
  • Taught security-fundamentals lectures to 70+ students.
  • Collaborated with a team of four TAs to design and run 10+ CTF challenges, incorporating network reconnaissance and vulnerability scanning (Nmap).
  • Coached 20+ students weekly in web development.

Brigham Young University, Research Assistant

October 2024 – Present · Provo, UT

  • Research on VAPOR, a graphic modeling language for cybersecurity attack scenarios, as part of a multi-disciplinary team, published at SIGITE ‘25.
  • Analyze usability feedback from 50+ users to identify patterns and recommend improvements to the language.
  • Co-author research reports and presentations of findings.

Publications

VAPOR: A Graphic Modeling Language for Cybersecurity Attack Scenarios
Malaya Jordan Canite, Ethan James Richmond, Zac Maughan, Spencer Smith, Derek Hansen, Benjamin Schooley
Proceedings of the 26th ACM Annual Conference on Cybersecurity & Information Technology Education (SIGITE '25) · pp. 213–218 · November 2025
doi.org/10.1145/3769694.3771106
BAIT: A Social Engineering Practice Platform
Benjamin Schooley, Derek Hansen, Jackson Knepper, Zachary Hansen, Spencer Smith, Ezra Bradley, Tyler Bosco Holland, Jonathan Allan Houston, Ethan Beere, Barry M. Lunt
Proceedings of the 26th ACM Annual Conference on Cybersecurity & Information Technology Education (SIGITE '25) · pp. 58–63 · November 2025
doi.org/10.1145/3769694.3771120

Projects

Personal Infrastructure Lab (Proxmox VE)

Self-hosted virtualization environment built and administered on independently provisioned and upgraded hardware. Runs multiple VMs and LXC containers including Wazuh (SIEM/XDR) with agents across every host, a self-hosted password manager, file storage, network-wide DNS filtering and availability monitoring. Remote access is secured with Tailscale, with least-privilege ACLs restricting which machines may reach which services. Public services are exposed via Cloudflare Tunnel with no inbound ports opened. Automated nightly backups run to a separate ZFS pool.

BAIT: Social Engineering Defense Training Platform

Lead developer on a social-engineering practice platform, building penetration-testing exercises, secure database design and containerized deployments. Studied training effectiveness using Design-Based Research (DBR) methodology with a multi-disciplinary team. Published at SIGITE ‘25.

Secure Task Management Web App

Task-management application with user authentication, built in Svelte/JavaScript and deployed on AWS over HTTPS. Hardened against the OWASP Top 10: input validation, secure session management, and access controls on user data.

Skills

AI & LLM Security

GarakAdversarial MLRed-Team TestingLLM GuardNeMo GuardrailsRAGAgentic WorkflowsLangfuseOpenTelemetry

Governance, Risk & Compliance

NISTRisk Management FrameworkPOA&MsSecurity AssessmentsSystems AuditingRBAC Governance

Networking & Cryptography

WiresharkTcpdumpNmapNetwork SegmentationRSAAES

Virtualization & Cloud

KubernetesHelmDockerProxmox VEVMwareAWS

Systems & Security Administration

LinuxWazuh (SIEM/XDR)SplunkKeycloak SSORBACPowerShellGitHub Actions

Cluster & GPU Computing

NVIDIA DRA GPU SchedulingvLLMPrometheusGrafanaKubernetes PVCs

Programming

PythonC++JavaScriptSQLPHP

Languages

EnglishSpanish

Additional Experience

DSM Construction Inc, Intern

June 2023 – August 2023 · Herndon, VA

  • Managed construction projects, ensuring adherence to timelines and quality standards.
  • Maintained a safe and orderly work environment by organizing tools, equipment and work areas.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Full-Time Volunteer

June 2021 – June 2023 · Saltillo, Mexico

  • Supervised four teams of volunteers and guided them toward organizational goals.
  • Spearheaded initiatives to foster inclusion and understanding among communities.
  • Delivered speeches and presentations at services, events and group gatherings in both English and Spanish.