Westwood High School students are in Detroit for the High School Cyber Challenge. From left are Aili Harmon, Nathan Wisuri and Alex Miller. (Photo courtesy of Westwood High School)

ISHPEMING — Emphasis is being placed on getting more girls involved in the STEM-related fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

So, why shouldn’t cybersecurity — which definitely is tied to technology — be another field open to females?

Aili Harmon, a junior at Westwood High School, just finished competing in the Governor’s High School Cyber Challenge held in late October at Cobo Center in Detroit.

The event brought together high school teams from across MIchigan to compete in challenges designed to test their knowledge of information technology and cybersecurity.

Cybersecurity deals with measures taken to protect computers and their systems from unauthorized access or attacks.

Harmon and her Westwood teammates, Alex Miller and Nathan Wisuri, finished in eighth place by competing in what she called a “computer within a computer” event with different challenges.

“We were using basic programming and we had to try and hack into fake websites and use basic commands,” Harmon said.

Of course, she couldn’t go into the competition without some grasp of the subject. So, Harmon has been learning about cybersecurity and programming in one of her high school classes.

It paid off. Out of the 10 teams that made it to the finals in Detroit, Harmon said she was the sole female.

She’s not sure why there weren’t more girls.

“Maybe a lot of girls don’t really decide that’s what they want to do or get involved in computer science,” Harmon said.

However, the subject of cybersecurity interests her.

“Almost every career you’ll be in, there’s some aspect of cybersecurity,” Harmon said. “You’re using a computer. You don’t want somebody to get a hold of information that they shouldn’t have, and in our everyday lives, we’re dealing with more and more smart devices and we don’t want to be threatened by hackers in our day-to-day life. So, it really applies to many areas of life.”

Even with her success in cybersecurity, Harmon doesn’t know quite yet where her career path will lead.

“Probably whatever I do, it’ll be helpful to be aware of the various threats,” Harmon said.

NICE Community Schools Superintendent Bryan DeAugustine gave credit to Harmon as well as her teammates.

“We are very proud of Aili’s work and the work of her teammates, Alex Miller and Nathan Wisuri,” he said in an email. “For our team to earn eighth place in the state of Michigan and to have our governor recognize Aili’s accomplishments is an amazing experience for our school district.

“Our students worked very hard to achieve this recognition and we are very excited for them and for our school.”

Competition scores at the Detroit event were based on the number of completed virtual challenges and the highest demonstrated mastery of important cybersecurity skills.

Harmon said the newly formed Westwood team spent only two months preparing for the competition.

“We didn’t really know what to expect,” Harmon said. “Down there we learned what more we had to learn, so now we know what we want to look into more.”

Winning the event was Cadillac High School, followed by Marquette Senior High School in second and Okemos High School in third. Cadillac and Okemos are from downstate.

Kim Carr, MSHS business and technology teacher and district Career and Technical Education coordinator, said in an email she was proud of the problem-solving skills of the school’s two-person team, Willem Guter and Mathurin Gagnon.

“They have an incredible amount of patience, talent and they love a challenge,” Carr said. “They have what it takes to make it in cybersecurity and computer coding.”

Said Guter in an email: “It was a test of real skills that you would use in the work world. It was also great to the meet the governor.”

A total of 223 teams composed of 650 students took part in the Challenge, which involved various rounds of competition.

The Cyber Challenge is run and facilitated by the Merit Network and the Michigan Cyber Range in partnership with the state of Michigan.

In the meantime, Harmon will keep busy in a variety of activities, having also taken up painting as a summer project.

“She’s amazing girl,” said her father, George.

Perhaps there will be more “amazing girls” in cybersecurity and other computer-related and technical fields.

“It’s important to make sure that girls know about these opportunities and encourage them to get involved,” Harmon said.