Krystal A. Porter is a passionate advocate for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Outside of her corporate role, she works tirelessly to ensure that others can excel as she could from enlisted soldier to officer and, after retiring from the military, working up through the ranks to lead engineer at Leidos, which provides scientific, engineering, systems integration, and technical service.

Krystal volunteers with the International Council on Systems Engineering, a membership organization and professional society in systems engineering. She also serves as a chief financial officer for the Black Cybersecurity Association, an organization focused on community and career mentorship for underrepresented minorities in the cybersecurity industry.

In addition, she helps in an informal advisory role for the Rush Hospital REACH (Rush Education and Career Hub) program.

In her hometown of Chicago, IL, Krystal is dedicated to helping friends and family get the skills and job training to enter STEM fields. Krystal earned a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Illinois at Chicago and has IT certifications from the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA).

Early in her career, Krystal was a signal communications and psychological operations officer for the U.S. Army. Currently, she is a lead engineer and solutions architect for the Airborne Reconnaissance Low – Enhanced program at Leidos, where she supports solutions for aircraft platforms and serves in multi-disciplinary teams based in geographically dispersed locations.

For her outstanding achievements, Krystal has been recognized with the Leidos Achievement Award for Excellence in Program Performance for Technology and the Leidos Agility Award. She has served as the Jimmy Doolittle Educational Fellow at the Leidos operations center for current/future armed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology.

On Feb 13, Krystal received the Dr. Wanda M. Austin Legacy Award at the BEYA Conference. Austin is a former president and CEO of The Aerospace Corporation, a leading architect for its national security space programs. She received the top award at the 2009 BEYA STEM Conference hosted by Career Communications Group (CCG).

High-Tech Sunday’s weekly program is produced by and for CCG’s community of alumni and professionals in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields, thought leaders, and students, to bring a concentrated discussion around technological advancements and achievements based on universal moral principles.

The one-hour podcasts are streamed every Sunday. They can be accessed through the CCG YouTube pages, in addition to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Podbean, TuneIn, and Spotify.