Currently working from home, alumnus Chase Boni (BS ’20 combined major in CS & Linguistics) is an associate cybersecurity software engineer at MITRE, where he started work in July 2020. MITRE is a not-for-profit corporation that operates seven federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) for different government sponsors. MITRE supports a number of government agencies with different tech problems they might incur. Boni works on a project revolving around COVID-19 response, he currently works on the coding and testing for a mobile app.

Boni would have never been exposed to the culture at MITRE without the experience of his first Northeastern co-op. When applying for a co-op in 2017, Boni sent out a few applications for various positions, but a lack of responses led him to reach out to his co-op coordinator, Aileen Kent Yates, who gave him a list of companies more suited to him, which included MITRE. Once Boni dived into his company research on MITRE, he was in awe of their work and applied immediately.

“MITRE’s mission is unlike any other typical government contractor because they’re not-for-profit,” said Boni. “MITRE’s role is to provide unbiased solutions and recommendations to the government rather than sell them a product,” he continued. Boni expressed enthusiasm for his role because of the principles instilled in MITRE employees: “We’re there to do the best work that we can to create the best outcomes for our government sponsors rather than just making money for the company.” He said this allowed employees more flexibility to be more innovative.

As an undergraduate, Boni completed three co-ops. The first was at MITRE in software development; though he had a wonderful experience and wanted to go back for his second co-op, his department head advised him to explore a different company to learn more about different industries. In hindsight, Boni said that was great advice — trying out different companies helped him realize that MITRE was the company for him.

His second co-op was at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, NY, which gave him basic research experience. He learned that a rural location and basic research weren’t in his future. “I preferred research that was being fielded immediately rather than research that was more theoretically focused and not as immediately applicable to the real world,” explained Boni. His third co-op was at Leidos, a more traditional government contractor. Boni worked for them in Bethesda, MD on a project supporting the U.S. Navy. The project was a longstanding legacy program and included working on an old system. “I learned that I preferred working on more innovative projects rather than supporting older legacy systems, which was important in helping me get a better idea of my future career goals,” he said. Nevertheless, he liked living in the Washington, D.C. area and knew he wanted to stay, so he applied to MITRE’s McLean, VA office.

For Boni, who entered Northeastern in the fall of 2015 and graduated in May 2020, the co-op program was the driver of his passion for the intersection between computer science and government. “The co-ops helped me experience the real world and learn by doing what I was drawn to,” he said.  Reflecting on his introduction to computer science, Boni remarked, “Since computer science is such a broad field, It’s very hard to enter computer science and know what you want to do, so by having the opportunity to experience that through co-op showed me what I was passionate about and gave me an avenue to pursue it.”

As a combined CS and linguistics major, Boni became president of the Linguistics Club in his sophomore year. He was also involved in Greek life, as a member of the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta, where he served as chapter historian. Outside of Northeastern, he was involved in the Civil Air Patrol – United States Air Force Auxiliary and was part of their cadet program in high school; he has remained involved ever since. Boni says that his time at Northeastern was transformative, not as a big eureka moment but a more incremental life-changing experience.

Boni is motivated by the aims of public service. His short-term goal at MITRE is to get as involved in a multitude of projects and learn more about MITRE’s work through practice. “Working for a company like MITRE that’s able to provide meaningful support and help the government solve challenges across a number of domains—like national security, healthcare, and veterans affairs work—allows us as employees to have an impact in different areas of government,” stressed Boni. In the future, he hopes to take on a management role and work with the chains that MITRE directly affects.