While her peers were skipping class for fun, Bee Davis ’20 EMCS was charting a different course. 
From a young age, Davis showed an insatiable curiosity and love for technology. The initial click started in fifth grade when she was gifted an Apple IIc computer from her mother.
Before long, she started swapping the halls of high school for the local college campus next door, sneaking away to immerse herself in books, motivated to master a language her current curriculum didn’t offer — coding and programming.
Decoding a career path
Upon graduating with her bachelor’s, Davis landed an entry-level role in tech support at E*TRADE.
From there her programming skills didn’t stay hidden for long. “Someone noticed that I knew a lot about programming, and they offered me an opportunity to visit the headquarters in Menlo Park, California to meet the team,” she says.
That fateful break launched Davis into the heart of Silicon Valley as an early engineer at startup Pandora Music. She also held a role at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as a senior principal of data science and data security.
However, despite the experience she amassed, she found herself consistently overlooked for management roles. It was then she noticed a stark pattern that those who advance within the tech industry commonly hold master’s degrees.
This realization led her to pursue a master’s in cybersecurity* from Brown University. She was drawn to the University’s ethos of embracing individuality and diversity of thought, which resonated deeply with Davis’s own ideals of equity and inclusivity.
The impact of a Brown education
Davis started at Brown with renewed optimism for a path to greater opportunity.
“I hoped that a master’s degree from Brown would allow me to secure a career I loved and advance in that role,” Davis reflects. Instead, it gave her so much more. “Brown gave me the ability to think beyond a technical standpoint. I gained leadership, management, risk assessment and policy writing skills,” she says.