Student Profile
Tyler Cooper
Director of IT Security , Merlin Labs
Air National Guard
Class of 2026
When Tyler Cooper graduated from Penn State with a major in environmental resource management, finding remunerative jobs proved a challenge, despite how rewarding he found his field of study. His solution was to find another career and serve the country at the same time. “When I just couldn’t make ends meet anymore I enlisted into the Air National Guard squadron that had cyber roles to jumpstart a career switch,” he says. “The decision to switch was, for better or worse, economically driven.”
Cooper’s strategy paid off. From the jump, his career has involved cybersecurity, starting with Lockheed Martin, progressing to hypersonic aircraft maker Hermeus, to his current position as Director of IT Security at Merlin. The Boston-based company builds AI-powered aircraft-agnostic software to enable takeoff-to-touchdown autonomous flight for civil and military applications.
Firms like Merlin that serve both the commercial and defense markets face endless cybersecurity threats, Cooper points out. “Being a defense company alone puts a target on you with state actors. And with the rampant adoption of AI for malicious activity, most if not all companies are threatened constantly through phishing and social engineering—for instance, attacks by impersonating IT support, executives, and vendors to get access to credentials and sensitive information. The role I’m in means I also have to deal with different and sometimes opposing regulations, agencies, compliance, and risk. Every decision I make—and the effects of that decision for this company—has a commercial and defense impact.”
To keep on top of such a dynamic field, Cooper realized continuous learning was necessary. “My career and responsibilities have stretched more and more into the legal area, especially with regulations and compliance.” In surveying the universe of cyber programs, he found that “the MSCRS program checked all of the boxes: a prestigious school, a flexible program, and highly experienced professors. That balance of cyber and law, which I didn’t come across with other schools, was really the biggest driver of my decision to join NYU.
“I can’t say enough about the faculty. The program supporters are incredibly helpful and care deeply about the success of the program and students. The professors come from amazing backgrounds at large and impressive companies, and they have spent sometimes decades in this field having seen and heard it all. The residencies are so valuable and rewarding, being face to face with professors and students. They encourage intense dialogue and have really thought out how this program should progress over time to stay current and effective. What I especially love about the program is its highlight of risk and risk management. There will always be too many threats to manage, but with risk management you can leverage a framework that works best for your company’s attack surface and risk appetite.”
As for Cooper’s undergraduate field of study, he never fully abandoned that. “One of my hobbies, in addition to sailing, is potamology (study of rivers). Whenever I’m around a river, I’ll do a quick study. When I was finding a place to build a cabin on a river in Georgia, I studied the river extensively—macroinvertebrates, riparian zone, diversity, sinuosity.”