Meet the Season VI, US Cyber Team: 32 Athletes Drafted at Season VI Draft Day
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The picks are in. On Thursday, October 22, Team USA coaches named the Season VI, US Cyber Team live on the Season VI Draft Day livestream. They filled all 32 roster spots from the more than 140 athletes invited to the Season VI, US Cyber Combine.
To every athlete who heard their name called: congratulations, and welcome to the US Cyber Team.
None of this happens without our Season VI sponsors and partners. Thank you to PlayCyber (powered by Katzcy), NIST NICE, CISA, Leidos, Riverside Research, Mastercard, Battelle, eGroup Enabling Technologies, SimSpace, Kindo, Glitch Cyber Range, SANS Institute, U.S. Cyber Range, Cyber Jutsu, and Cyber Esports Foundation for investing in the next generation of Team USA.
How the night unfolded
The livestream ran from 6:30 to 9:00 PM ET. Danielle Santos, Deputy Director of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) at NIST, delivered the keynote. US Cyber Games Commissioner Jessica Gulick gave the Human Edge talk, and Brad Wolfenden discussed our “Path to the Draft,” introduced the Team USA coaches, and led the roster reveal athlete commentary. Will Baxter, Product Director at Team Cymru, delivered the closing keynote.
Round 1 opened with two headline picks. The coaches named Adrian Self (@AdnanSlef) the Season VI Team Captain, then made Austin Stitz (@AustinStitz) the Coaches' Pick. From there, coaches took the mic to welcome each athlete to the team.
The roster by the numbers:
- 32 athletes named to the 2027 US Cyber Team
- 7 Domain Leads, one for each specialty
- 22 return from previous US Cyber Teams
- 20 colleges and universities represented, from Stanford and UC Berkeley to Dakota State and Embry-Riddle
- 5 high school students, alongside college and graduate students, working professionals and a job seeker
- 18 have two or more years of US Cyber Team experience
- 12 are alumni of the US Cyber Games Pipeline Program
- Athletes come from 16 states and the District of Columbia
The roster covers every major specialty in competitive cyber: reverse engineering, binary exploitation (PWN), web security, cryptography, forensics, hardware and embedded systems, and attack/defense and tooling.
Unlocking the Human Edge
This season's theme, Unlock the Human Edge, celebrates what sets great cyber competitors apart: curiosity, persistence, readiness, and teamwork. Each athlete was introduced with three words that capture their own Human Edge. "Curious" came up more than any other word, followed closely by "Determined." Lloyd Gonzales kept it simple with "Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn," and Nico Posada went with "Locked in, sometimes."
Meet the Domain Leads
Every great team needs anchors. Coaches named seven Domain Leads, one for each specialty, to set the pace in training and guide teammates in their domain. All seven are returning US Cyber Team athletes.
Attack/Defense & Tooling: Austin Stitz (@AustinStitz), an Electrical and Computer Engineering student at UNC Charlotte and this year's Coaches' Pick.
Crypto: Nakul Choudhary (@quasar0147), a Mathematics student at UC Berkeley who has reached the DEF CON, Google CTF and HITCON finals.
Forensics: Chris Marotta (@Kasm), a working professional and University of Virginia Computer Science graduate who holds GFACT, GSEC, and GNFA certifications and has taken on PCDC, CCDC, and ICC.
PWN: Owen Kwan (@unvariant), a working professional and Arizona State University Computer Science student with DEF CON and UIUC CTF experience.
Web Security: Sylvie Mayer (@sy1vi3), a working professional and Rochester Institute of Technology Cybersecurity graduate who discovered React2Shell. Sylvie brings Google CTF and WICC experience.
Hardware/Embedded Systems: Macen Bird (@overllama), a Cybersecurity graduate student at Brigham Young University whose team has won the DEF CON Embedded Systems Village CTF two years running.
Reverse Engineering: Nico Posada (@oh_word), a Cybersecurity student at Purdue University with DEF CON Qualifiers and ICC experience.
The Season VI, US Cyber Team
The Season VI, US Cyber Team, led by Team Captain Adrian Self and grouped by primary specialty, with each Domain Lead listed first.
| Athlete | Specialty | Student/Graduate |
|---|---|---|
| Adrian Self (Team Captain) | Crypto | Michigan State University |
| Austin Stitz (Coaches' Pick, Domain Lead) | Attack/Defense & Tooling | University of North Carolina at Charlotte |
| Nakul Choudhary (Domain Lead) | Crypto | University of California, Berkeley |
| Andrew Liu | Crypto | High School Student |
| Rajat Patel | Crypto | Rutgers University |
| Victoria (Tori) Plinski | Crypto | Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University |
| Chris Marotta (Domain Lead) | Forensics | University of Virginia |
| Waleed Aslam | Forensics | College Student |
| Matthew Eckert | Forensics | Northeastern University |
| Lloyd Gonzales | Forensics | University of Nevada, Reno |
| Sammy Korodi | Forensics | University of Alabama |
| Zoey Linardos (Pipeline Alum) | Forensics | University of Maine at Augusta |
| Shalin Madabhavi (Pipeline Alum) | Forensics | High School Student |
| Nichole Thomas | Forensics | Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University |
| Macen Bird (Domain Lead) | Hardware/Embedded Systems | Brigham Young University |
| Owen Kwan (Domain Lead) | PWN | Arizona State University |
| Eric Chen (Pipeline Alum) | PWN | High School Student |
| Shane Donahue | PWN | Dakota State University |
| Sebastian Dowell | PWN | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| Ethan Ho | PWN | Stanford University |
| Ariel Khais | PWN | University of Washington - Bothell |
| Gwendolyn (Gwen) Vongkasemsiri | PWN | Dakota State University |
| Nicolas (Nico) Posada (Domain Lead) | Reverse Engineering | Purdue University |
| Brayden Borges | Reverse Engineering | Dakota State University |
| Gabe Gordon | Reverse Engineering | University of Alabama in Huntsville |
| Jeremy Yu (Pipeline Alum) | Reverse Engineering | High School Student |
| Alex Zhang | Reverse Engineering | Texas A&M University |
| Sylvie Mayer (Domain Lead) | Web Security | Rochester Institute of Technology |
| Kameron Bettridge | Web Security | University of Nevada, Reno |
| Ava Masinsin | Web Security | Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University |
| Lav Patel | Web Security | Purdue University |
| Mihir Sahani | Web Security | High School Student |
What's next for Team USA
The Season VI US Cyber Team has a big year ahead:
- June 2027: The US Cyber Team hosts the Women's International Cybersecurity Challenge (WICC) in Washington, DC.
- October 2027: The US Cyber Team is confirmed for the International Cybersecurity Challenge (ICC) in Dublin, Ireland.
- 2027: The US Cyber Team hopes to compete at the European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) in Denmark, pending an invitation.
Thank you to our sponsors and partners
Season VI of the US Cyber Games is made possible by PlayCyber (powered by Katzcy), NIST NICE, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), Leidos, Riverside Research, Mastercard, Battelle, eGroup Enabling Technologies, SimSpace, Kindo, Glitch Cyber Range, SANS Institute, U.S. Cyber Range, Cyber Jutsu and Cyber Esports Foundation.
Watch the replay
Missed the livestream? Watch the full Draft Day broadcast at this link, and follow the 2027 US Cyber Team's journey at uscybergames.com.
Draft Day also welcomed 38 athletes to the Season VI USCG Pipeline Program, the path to future US Cyber Teams and the source of any replacement talent this season. Meet them in Welcome to the Pipeline.
#USCyberGames #DraftDay #HumanEdge
US Cyber Games® is committed to inform and inspire the broader community on ways to develop tomorrow’s cybersecurity workforce. Our mission is to bring together elite cyber athletes, coaches, and industry leaders to help scout, train, and send a US Cyber Team® to take the gold at the International Cybersecurity Challenge (ICC). US Cyber Games is led by Katzcy, in cooperation with the NICE program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
This project is supported by NICE, a program of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce, under financial assistance award #70NANB22H102.
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