Sydney Robinson

Current Position: HSE/Reliability Technician at Mars Fishcare

Story Last Updated: Summer 2024

In high school, one of Sydney Robinson’s teachers encouraged her to focus her creativity on digital creation. Today, as a GMercyU Computer Information Science major with a concentration in Web Design & Multimedia, Sydney joins the ranks of a growing number of young women choosing to pursue a field once dominated by men.

Sydney was awarded the prestigious Clare Boothe Luce Scholarship in 2020, which was established to “encourage women to pursue graduate education and careers in teaching and research in disciplines having the lowest participation of women, namely physics, math, computer science, and chemistry.” The scholarship is the single largest private source of funding for women in science and engineering.

"It is important that we level the playing field for women in technology for many reasons. Not only does a degree in CIS provide women with the skills they need to compete in today’s job market, it also gives them with the tools necessary for the careers of the future,” said CIS Program Coordinator and Professor of Practice Cindy Casey. “With advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning, more women in the field will aid in addressing machine bias, because AI mirrors those preparing the datasets and training the models. Encouraging women in technology will have a positive impact on computing and give younger girls role models to look up to."

Read more about Sydney’s experience as a GMercyU CIS major and scholarship recipient below.

Becoming the 2020 Clare Boothe Luce Scholar

It’s true that there is not as many women in CIS as men and by receiving this scholarship, I feel like I stand for the women who might not know or think to do something like this for their career. I believe that this field is not something just for men and that more women should pursue CIS as a career.

To me, being a Clare Boothe Luce Scholarship recipient means being a role model for young women who think that CIS is something that they may want to pursue in the future.

GMercyU’s CIS “Family”

The CIS program is great because it feels like a family. From my first meeting with Professor Casey, I felt like she really took me under her wing so that I would be successful in the future. If I have any problems or questions, she is there not only for me but for each student in the program, which makes stressful times so much easier.

Sydney’s 2020 Undergraduate Research Project

A lot of my project, “Mitigating Web Vulnerabilities: A Programmer’s Prospective", talked about the importance of designers and developers building precautions into their websites, specifically the coding, so that the possibility of being attacked is minimized. It happens so often, and if I have a little knowledge about how to prevent that from happening to web design projects I work on in the future, then I'm one step closer to becoming successful.

Career Goals

Short term, I want to finish my college years as excited about creating websites as I did when I was learning in high school for the first time. Long term, I want to work for a design firm that creates websites. It would also be nice to create websites on the side, too.

Life Updates

I'm currently getting my master's degree in Occupational Safety and Health with a concentration in Environment from Columbia Southern University. I plan to graduate in 2025. 

Since graduating from GMercyU, I've pivoted career paths from what I originally thought I wanted. During my junior year of college, I got a position at Mars Fishcare, a manufacturing facility that produces aquarium and pond water treatments, along with packaging fish food, for the safety and reliability manager. While there, I developed a passion for the significance of workplace safety and my role in ensuring that regulations and policies are followed daily. When it became evident that my professional interests had shifted, I opted to pursue a master's degree in Occupational Safety and Health to gain a deeper grasp of the safety function. 

With all that said, I still work in a male-dominated field and every day when I come to work I have to prove that I'm good enough to take on such a huge responsibility. No matter my studies, computer science or safety, I want young women to feel comfortable enough to do a job that they love and are praised for, no matter their gender or skin color. It's taken me a while for me to feel as though I belong at the "table" sharing my thoughts, but once you gain that feeling of belonging, it makes all the work that you have done so worth it. 

I now work as a Health, Safety, and Environmental (HSE)/Reliability Technician at Mars Fishcare.