The symposium brought together students with government and industry leaders to look at open-source software, social media and national security.

Jay Greenberg, special agent in charge of the St. Louis FBI field office, had one message for students at the inaugural Symposium on Open Source, Social Media and National Security - if a kid from Garland, Texas could find his place in an intelligence agency, any one can.

“If I can do it, so can you,” he said. 

During his keynote, Greenberg highlighted his path to the FBI and some of the work he had done in various positions with the agency. Much of that work was done by cooperating with other agencies. 

“I know you can't say it in St. Louis but we really are 'Better Together,'” he said. “We work together with other agencies.”

The event also featured keynote presentations from Patti O’Neill-Brown, Ph.D., Open Source Intelligence Integration Center (OSIC) at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Liz Chiarello, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at SLU and a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

The symposium was sponsored by the Midwest Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence (MW-IC CAE) at Saint Louis University. 

“Opportunities like this, where we bring together students and practitioners from across the intelligence community, really helps to build interest in careers in the public sector,” said Joe Lyons, Ph.D., principal investigator for MW-IC CAE and director of the Security and Strategic Intelligence program in the School for Professional Studies.

The event featured a student mentoring lunch, as well as opportunities for students to learn about career pathways in the intelligence community for open source and social media analysis.

MW-IC CAE was formed in 2022 with a grant from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It is dedicated to preparing students for professional positions in the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies. The Center supports the design and development of intelligence-related STEM curricula and programmatic training opportunities to prepare students for careers in the field of intelligence.

The event was sponsored by SLU, the Intelligence Community Centers for Academic Excellence and the Taylor Geospatial Institute.

Saint Louis University

Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 13,500 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.