| Managing Dara
Sewell heads up digital forensics at the FBI She
thought she'd fulfilled her dream when she joined the FBI after seventeen years
in industry. Now she's overseeing the work of 250 forensic examiners  | | The
FBI's Dara Sewell: "I knew that I could help at the leadership level." |
"I
would never have dreamed that I would be where I am in the time I've been here
at the bureau," says Dara Sewell. Early
this year, Sewell became unit chief for the digital evidence forensics unit at
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI, Washington, DC). She supervises the
work of forensic examiners in all FBI divisions throughout the U.S., working out
of two offices, one at FBI HQ (Washington, DC) and the other at the FBI engineering
research facility (Quantico, VA). Every
year the FBI conducts more than a million examinations, from fingerprints to tire-tread
analysis. It also helps train state and local forensic labs in new methodologies.
IT is
big
Criminals who think they've covered their electronic tracks find themselves
exposed by Sewell and her staff of digital forensic examiners. The FBI examiners
work with all the electronic media they can get: PCs with Windows or Linux OS,
Macs, media sticks, CDs, diskettes, PDAs, hard drives and thumb drives. "We
encounter all these devices," says Sewell. The
examiners preserve the information, extract it in a form that investigators can
use, and provide expert testimony in court. They also go to the scene of investigations
to collect evidence. Special
agent Sewell
Sewell joined the FBI as a special agent in 1996, with the
idea of working her way into the technical area. At the time, she was under the
entry age limit by only six months. "I knew that there would be no other
time for me to take the job," she says. And
she wanted the job. "I wanted the minority community to recognize that some
options are available that are not readily known to us," she says. Training
The
sixteen-week training process was physically challenging, but she was well prepared
professionally. She had a 1992 dual degree in EE and ME from the University of
Maryland. She had been working on it ever since she graduated from high school
in 1976. A
couple of years after high school she started work at the defense division of
Westinghouse in Linthicum, MD, near Baltimore-Washington International airport.
"I enjoyed the idea of working with digital technology," she says. She
stayed there seventeen years. Most
of her work at Westinghouse was electrical - digital-related jobs like laying
out circuit boards and designing test boxes. She worked on radar systems including
F16, B1B and AWACS. Eventually she was managing production of transmitters for
the F16 radar. On
to the FBI
She might have stayed there forever, but when downsizing threatened
in 1995, it was time to move on. A friend from church told her about the FBI and
she decided to try for it. As
a new special agent, she was assigned to an office in West Virginia. Then in 1998
she moved to Pittsburgh and got involved with the federally funded Computer Emergency
Response Team (CERT), working at the team's HQ at the Software Engineering Institute
at Carnegie-Mellon University. She worked on computer-
related investigations
as well as digital forensic examinations in which she
actually processed digital
media. Into
management
Her next post brought her to Washington, DC HQ as a supervisory
special agent of the FBI Computer Analysis Response Team. "I knew there were
things within the digital evidence community that I could help with at the leadership
level," she says.
This spring, she took on forensics responsibility for
the entire U.S. Networking
As
part of her job, Sewell networks with other national and international technical
groups to keep current on issues in the digital evidence community. "Computers
go across all boundaries," she notes. Her
husband, she says, is her main inspiration and mentor. His experience as a police
officer connected her to the law enforcement community. While she was starting
out with the FBI, his career took him into the government sector, where he now
works for the Alexandria federal courts. Sewell
hasn't seen many African American women in her line of work. But she's hoping
for change. "I can make a difference," she says. "I can make minorities
aware of the opportunities here, and help to make things better." D/C
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Kate Colborn & Christine Willard | 
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