MITRE Corporation engineers Ben King, Sr., James Tolbert, II, and Nickyra Washington were all recognized for their technical expertise and leadership at the 2013 Black Engineer of the Year Awards (BEYA) STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Global Competitiveness Conference in Washington, D.C. King received a Career Achievement Award, while Tolbert and Washington received Modern-Day Technology Awards.
“We’re honored that BEYA chose to recognize Ben, James, and Nickyra for their professional achievements and commitment to their communities,” said Karen Quinn-Quintin, vice president and chief human resources officer at MITRE. “Their dedication to fulfilling MITRE’s mission to address issues of critical national importance while investing in and inspiring the next generation of STEM leaders gives us great pride in their accomplishments.”
All three of the engineers have demonstrated excellence both in their positions as well as outside of work in various community service positions.
King, the veteran of the group who has spent the over 20 years with MITRE since joining the company in 1990, is a multi-discipline systems engineer in the organization’s Command and Control Center within the Department of Defense-sponsored National Security Engineering Center (NSEC). He supports the Office of Infrastructure Protection, a component of the National Protection and Programs Directorate within the Department of Homeland Security, by performance-testing its Chemical Security Assessment Tool.
King mentors students and promotes science and research through the MITRE and T.C. Williams High School Engineering and Enrichment Program. He also is a member of the Chantilly Pyramid Minority Student Achievement Committee, which recognizes minority youth in the Fairfax County area for their academic achievements. King holds a master’s degree in computer and information sciences from George Mason University, and bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of South Alabama.
Tolbert has worked with MITRE full-time in 2010 after completing a summer internship with the organization in 2009. He is a senior software engineer in MITRE’s Center for Integrated Intelligence Systems (CIIS) within the NSEC. Tolbert is responsible for developing software prototypes and consulting on existing technologies for the Intelligence Community.
While working toward a bachelor’s degree in computer science from MIT, Tolbert engaged his passion for dance by earning a minor in theater arts from MIT and performing competitively and professionally. He later went on to earn a master’s degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University and a master’s degree in computer science from the Howard University. While completing his graduate studies, Tolbert volunteered to run a motion capture lab at a local high school, where students learned how to use sensors to capture human movement and convert it into data that computers can process.
Washington joined MITRE in 2008 as a senior information security engineer/scientist in the CIIS. She oversees MITRE’s Information Security Vendor Risk Assessment Program, leading a team of security engineers who assess the security and privacy controls of vendors and provide security engineering expertise. Washington is a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional/Government and a Certified Information Privacy Professional/U.S.
In her spare time, Washington serves as co-chairman of the board for the Jennifer F. Lewis Foundation, a non-profit organization committed to raising awareness about ovarian cancer, and leads the foundation’s academic scholarship program. She is also a mentor to inner-city adolescents and teenage girls through the Daughters of Destiny Mentoring Program. Washington holds master’s degrees in information systems management and business administration from the University of Maryland University College, and a bachelor’s degree in criminology, pre-law from the University of Maryland-College Park.
