Sean Sweeney

Sean Sweeney

Sean Sweeney

The recipient of the Department of History and Art History’s 2019 Outstanding Alumnus Award, Sean Sweeney, BA History ’00, learned the field of cyber security without undergraduate training in information technology or computer science.

Early in his career, Sweeney was a cofounder of a Pittsburgh-based electronic discovery startup. He then worked as the chief information officer for a national law firm, also based in Pittsburgh, and as a litigation support applications manager for the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

From a position of chief information officer at the University of Pittsburgh, he joined Microsoft, where he is now chief security advisor for the Americas in Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Solutions Group. Sean says what he learned at Mason—specifically the ability to communicate effectively and conduct independent research and analysis—enabled his success in the technology field.

Published in the CHSS annual report 2018-19.

Update: Sweeney is head of field chief information security officers (CISOs) at Oracle and is responsible for reshaping and scaling a team of highly-skilled former CISOs and senior security practitioners focused on advising customer CISOs on security and compliance issues related to cloud.