DAVIESS COUNTY, Ky. (WEHT)- A member of the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office is going to Iceland soon to work on a project, build connections, and fight cybercrime.
“I grew up in Calhoun and live in Owensboro. I never in my wildest imagination dreamed of this,” says Dr. Cheryl Purdy, a digital forensic examiner and analyst at the Daviess County Sheriff’s Office. She is also the supervisor of the Digital Forensics Unit.
Dr. Purdy recently was named a Fulbright Specialist Program Award winner by the U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. She first learned about the program a couple of years ago and says she knew it was something she wanted to pursue. At that time, she was teaching a cybersecurity course at the University of Louisville.
“I really enjoyed teaching that and when this opportunity with Fulbright came up, I was like woah, this was written for me,” Dr. Purdy says.
The Fulbright program aims to bring professionals who focus on cybercrime together, to share best practices and collaborate. The program will allow Dr. Purdy to be one of 400 U.S. citizens selected to go to the University of Akureyri in northern Iceland. She will spend up to six weeks there, teaching others about cybersecurity and building connections.