Georgetown University

10/10/2025 | News release | Distributed by Public on 10/10/2025 11:57

SFS Alumna Charts Career From Cybersecurity to Sports Writing Covering the Phillies

From professional baseball player to neurosurgeon, childhood aspirations for Lauren Boas Hayes (SFS'13) spanned just about every imaginable field. Her background as an international politics major with a minor in justice and peace studies led to a successful career in cybersecurity, in which she gained experience through roles in threat intelligence and analysis. During this time, she held positions with Deloitte, Meta, the Biden-Harris transition team and the Biden administration.

A former member of the Georgetown crew and softball teams, Boas Hayes recently channeled her love for sports into a new opportunity as a contributing writer covering the Philadelphia Phillies Major League Baseball team, all while undergoing physical therapy after a major leg injury. She remains connected with the Georgetown community and serves as an adjunct professor in SFS's Security Studies Program.

We asked Boas Hayes about her time at SFS, insights from her career journey and advice for students looking to get their dreams off the ground. Our Q&A has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Q. What initially drew you to SFS?

A. I wanted to study political science and attend the best school for politics. However, I had spent my childhood training for the Olympics in luge and living at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, and I was not sure if I could do both Olympic training and college. So I applied to a mix of schools with strong political science programs and schools that were near Lake Placid, hoping to attend school part-time while I trained.

In my senior year of high school, I visited Cornell [University] with my dad for a weekend and met with the head of the government studies department to learn more about the program. During that meeting, he said, "Are you absolutely certain that you will graduate with a degree in government studies or international relations? Nothing could possibly change your mind?" I responded, "Yes." He told me to write the names of every university I had gotten into on his whiteboard. He read the list and immediately said, "Then you should go to the SFS. It is the best school for politics on that list and likely the best school for international relations in the country." I left that trip and decided to go to Georgetown for at least one year while reassessing whether to return to Olympic training. The rest is history.

Q. How did your time at SFS help shape the way you view service and global engagement?

A. Georgetown exposed me to wealth and power and how they interact. That changed my understanding of how the world works and how I could achieve my childhood goals. I find the idea of representational government genuinely moving. When I got the opportunity to serve in the Biden administration, I wanted to honor the vote people cast for Joe Biden-by extension, a vote for the role I was in-by working hard, speaking truth to power-especially in support of those who lack the wealth or privilege to be in the halls of power-and always trying to do the right thing by the American people.

Q. What led you to pursue a career in cybersecurity? Was there a particular moment or influence that set you on that path?

A. There were two catalysts. One, I spent the summer before my senior year [of college] in DC working at the U.S. State Department and living in my senior year house in the Cloisters. [Through a friend,] I found myself the only woman in a group of about 15 Yalies at Google's DC office, having a conversation with Google's head of public policy and former U.S. representative, Susan Molinari. When the event concluded, she asked me to stay behind, and what she said to me changed my life.

She said, "Look around. There are no women in tech and especially few women in technical roles in tech. I'm so glad you came to this event, and I want to encourage you to find your way into tech after college. We need you. What are you studying?" I told her international politics, security studies and justice and peace studies and she said, "Human rights work is noble work, but most of those issues are only going to change on the margins over the entire course of your life, no matter how hard you work. Find a way to do human rights work in tech, and you'll get to have so much more influence on the issues you care about."

And two, as students living in the Cloisters, the Homeowners Association (HOA) was keen to make us feel unwelcome. For that, the neighbors who didn't like the HOA befriended us. One of them once asked me what I wanted to do after college and said something strikingly similar to what Molinari had shared. He said he had a dynamic career because he found his place in telecom, and his career got to grow as the industry grew. When I told him my interests, he was the one who first said to me, "What about cybersecurity?" I went home that day and googled "jobs in cybersecurity."

Q. What sparked you to seek a role in sports communications and to begin covering the Phillies?

A. I left DC shortly after Inauguration Day [in 2025] and knew that I wanted to take a few months to unwind. I had held sprint roles for the better part of seven years, having gone from Facebook where I worked on election security, counter-disinformation and counter-espionage to running cybersecurity for the Biden-Harris Transition, to then four years in the administration. I wanted to dream about what might come next and to redefine my north star. I am extremely proud to have achieved my goal of serving in a senior role in politics and government with a front row seat to history and helping move the world towards a more just future. Now, I want to find new goals that carry me forward in my next arc of life.

Amidst my time off, I suffered a life-changing leg injury that led to two surgeries and eight days in the hospital. I prioritized regaining the ability to walk, taking off work to focus on recovery and pursuing fun and enriching side quests.

For five months, I have done 1.5 hours of at-home physical therapy daily while watching the Phillies. The games motivate me to do PT each day and feel less bored. A friend who works in sports visited and suggested I channel my daily Phillies watching into some writing. I wrote a sample article, applied and got the job!

Q. Has there been a game or story you've covered that's stuck with you more than others? How does being a fan of baseball impact your approach to writing about it?

A. Baseball and softball have deep personal meaning to my family-I played softball at Georgetown, and my sibling played at Swarthmore. My dad was a lifelong Phillies fan whose passion and ministry was coaching softball and mentoring the young women on his teams.

When I was in third grade, my dad was diagnosed with a rare immune system disease and had many brushes with death throughout my lifetime. My sibling and I lived with the extraordinary gift of having a father who proved through his inimitable spirit that we were his reason to live.

As a blue-collar family, we never had money for season tickets-I had long harbored a dream of one day gifting my dad Phillies season tickets. For Christmas 2021, I got him season tickets and looked forward to going to games together. He was overjoyed and tearful when he opened them. Two weeks later, he unexpectedly passed away.

While I will never get to go to another game with my dad, I think about him every time I watch a game or write an article. I know that the Phillies are helping someone find joy during end-of-life care or helping some little girl bond with her dad-I want that relationship to baseball to infuse my writing.

Q. How have your professional experiences and your SFS education shaped the way you communicate complex ideas across different fields?

A. The reason I ascended quickly and early in my cybersecurity career was because I could synthesize information, identify the necessary questions, understand technical content and explain that content to others. Whenever I hear someone say that they pursued a hard science over a social science because "English majors don't get paid" or something similar, I just want to roll my eyes and say "Shut up." Whoever told them that gave them dreadful advice. I excelled and stood out in the cybersecurity field because I could write, brief and identify strategic opportunities.

I also find it fun and valuable to bring all of my diverse career experience to bear in each role, whether that is ramping up quickly in a new job because I spent years as a consultant or bringing understanding of data analysis using large datasets from my time in tech to my policy decision-making in government. Most recently, my background as a disinformation investigator and in politics led me to a story I am currently working on about a Facebook page that exclusively shares information about the Phillies much of which spreads false and often inflammatory political content.

Q. What has it meant to return and teach at SFS? What advice would you offer students navigating uncertain times or major life changes?

A. The opportunity to teach at SFS is an honor. I would never have ended up in cybersecurity without the critical conversations I had while a student at Georgetown and without a woman in power taking a gamble on me by offering me my first job in cybersecurity, despite my lack of experience in the field. Getting to mentor current students and help connect them to opportunities in the field enables me to give back. When I tell them that I look forward to working for one of them one day, I mean it.

The best advice I have ever been given was to understand that, "You are who you are, not what you do." This was shared with me when I was in high school and navigating the decision of whether to leave my Olympic dream to pursue college. I understood that I could train for the Olympics due to my unique, intrinsic qualities, and that even if I stopped training, I would still possess the skills to achieve other dreams. If you are at SFS, you are exceptional. You will navigate uncertain times and major life changes, and those qualities will create opportunities to tackle new challenges and unlock an extraordinary life.

Another piece of advice I have put into practice was relayed to me through an example: "If you tell someone you want to run for Congress, they will help you raise a million dollars. If you tell someone you want to intern on the Hill, they will help you find an unpaid internship."

I took from this the lesson to know your own goals, to share them and to ask boldly for the help you need.
To that end, I want to share a goal of my own at the intersection of sports, culture, and politics. I have a goal of joining the Organizing Committee of the Salt Lake 2034 Olympic Games. If anyone reading this has ideas or connections which could help me get closer to that goal, I would be greatly appreciative if you would reach out.

To any students reading, college is an incredible opportunity to think about your dreams. Write them down, tell people you want to achieve them-and to any current students, please try not to let the drudgery of the first few years of work beat them out of you. If there is any way I can help you achieve those goals, do not hesitate to reach out.

Georgetown University published this content on October 10, 2025, and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed via Public Technologies (PUBT), unedited and unaltered, on October 10, 2025 at 17:58 UTC. If you believe the information included in the content is inaccurate or outdated and requires editing or removal, please contact us at [email protected]