Hi there! I'm Mika Ayenson.

As a 90s kid I was always taking things apart. My father was in the STEM world, so we always had computers in the house. My dad introduced me to a game called Dangerous Dave and I was hooked — hours trying to beat it naturally led to more hours on the keyboard.

I earned my B.S. in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and my M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Tulsa's CyberCorps program. While in Oklahoma I met my wife AJ, and we eventually headed back east where I worked at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on software development and cyber operations. Along the way I finished my Ph.D., won BEYA 2021, and welcomed my son August.

Today I work at Elastic as the team lead for Threat Research & Detection Engineering (TRADE). Lately I've been deep in the weeds exploring the intersection of generative AI and cybersecurity — you can see what I'm working on over at my GenAI Security Research & Development page.