About Me

Hello, my name is Joe Montroy. I am a Junior studying cybersecurity at Loyola University Chicago. For the first half of my life I lived in East Lansing, Michigan before moving to Houston, Texas in 2014. Growing up in Houston, I learned first hand about the "Houston Hustle" mentality and I believe it is a huge part of what drives me today. I am always looking to sharpen and improve myself to be the best version of myself.

My love for computers and hacking began when I was a kid. My first experiences were inspecting webpages and changing the HTML to whatever I wanted to deface the website. Of course all it took to reset was the refresh button but it made me curious as to how someone would actually deface a webpage. My first experiences with coding were my first attempts at making video games. At the age of 10 I was watching YouTube tutorials and learning the basics of C# to create games in the now defunct GameMaker Studio. In high school I took my curiousity further and took 2 AP Computer Science classes. These classes are where I learned to appreciate the problem solving aspect of coding. I find nothing more satifying then sitting down with a problem for hours and obsessing over every detail until it is perfected. In these classes I learned how to code in Java, Python, and C#.

Why I chose cybersecurity?

At university, I chose cybersecurity for a multitude of reasons. First is the humanity aspect, cybersecurity is about helping people. Whether you are defending a network from a threat actor or protecting your grandmother from vishing and smishing attacks at its core cybersecurity is about helping people. Secondly, Cybersecurity is competitive. I am a very competitve person and cybersecurity is always a race between attacker and defender, red team vs. blue team, script kiddie vs. the NSA. It is a gritty game of cat and mouse and I want to compete in it. Thirdly, Social Engineering fascinates me. I was first introduced to the concept of social engineering by listening to the Darknet Diaries Podcast. I have listened to all 160+ episodes, but the ones I continually replay are the ones about social engineering. I have always been fascinated as to how you can talk someone into giving you information you shouldn't or casually walking into a place you shouldn't be in. It gets my brain turning everytime I think about it.

In my three years at Loyola Chicago I have tried to be a sponge to learn from every professor or pier and take in everything that I can. In fall of 2024 I participated in my first CTF and fell in love with the hands on nature of it. Courses such as Computer Forensics and Computer Networks deepened my knowledge of tools and widened my view on different aspects of cybersecurity. In the fall of 2025 I entered the USCYBERCOM CyberRECon Research Competition. My partner and I set out to build a system that uses AI and Machine Learning to increase the efficiency of surveillance security systems through means of object and motion detection. This is my first research paper and I have learned a lot in how to set up AI and ML models, train them on custom datasets, and have them output the desired log. In January of 2026, I recieved National Science Foundation CyberCorp's Scholoarship for Service. I will work in a cohort of my piers and advisors to best prepare myself to work in a Government cybersecurity position. This is a tremendous opportunity and I am ready to hit the ground running.

Personal Life

Outside of cybersecurity I enjoy a plethora of hobbies and activities. I play collegiate club baseball for Loyola. I am a outfielder, and as an upperclassman I enjoy being a seasoned leader of the team. Outside of baseball I am very active. I love casually playing basketball, football, soccer, and pickleball as well as weight lifting and running. I have a passion for videography, photography, and graphic design. From November of 2023 to January 2026 I was an employee of Loyola's creative media department where I would take videos of Loyola Athletic Events, like basketball and volleyball, and create social media content from it. I run the instagram for my baseball team doing all the photography and designwork from Fall 2024 onward. I really enjoy thrifting and about 95% of my wardrobe is thrifted. In 2020, I began thrifting and selling things that I found. 6 years later I have sold over 600 items and still sell occasionally. My work as a buyer and a seller is one of the reasons I love social engineering. I constantly interact with clients and sellers to get what I need and what they need. My communication skills are what they are today from selling online.

Thanks for reading about me.

Joe