Breaking the Vernacular: How Tiffany Hurtado Bridges the Gap Between Complex Policy and Community Tech
Security is fundamentally about community, accessibility, and visibility for Tiffany Hurtado, a student in the NYU Tandon Cybersecurity Master’s Program. While the field often conjures up images of isolated network engineering or clinical lines of code, Tiffany is shifting the focus back to humanity.
A Queens native with a background in political science, Hurtado has built an interdisciplinary path at the intersection of public service, cybersecurity, and emerging technology. By combining her experience in policy and community advocacy with technical training, she is exploring how technology can be used not only to secure systems, but also to make complex information more accessible to the public.
From Public Policy to the Digital Frontline
Graduating into the hazy, uncertain landscape of 2020, Tiffany found herself looking for ways to merge her community-driven advocacy with the rapidly accelerating advancements in artificial intelligence and technology.
"I wanted to find a way to combine my passions and everything I had learned. We know AI and technology are advancing, so I thought, why not take that step forward, be part of this program, and eventually bring that knowledge back to my community?”
The fully remote structure of the NYU Tandon Cybersecurity Master’s Program offered the perfect bridge. Despite initially being self-taught through online foundational courses, arriving at NYU Tandon gave her the hands-on lab environments and direct access to faculty she needed to turn theoretical knowledge into execution.
She quickly embedded herself into the campus fabric, even serving as a course assistant during her first semester. “Certificates are valuable, but being in school gives you something different. You have the opportunity to ask questions, work through hands-on labs, and really understand how everything connects. Over time, you start having those moments where you can say, ‘Okay, I know the language. I understand what’s happening.’ That’s when you realize, ‘I can actually do this.’”
Conquering Self-Doubt at the NYC Build with AI Hackathon
That foundational confidence was put to the ultimate test when Tiffany came across a notice for the New York City Build with AI Hackathon, a fast-paced two-day competition pairing city agency data challenges with Google Cloud technology.
Initially, hesitation crept in. “I looked at it and immediately hesitated,” she admits. “I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know if I’m ready for this, or if my skills are where they need to be yet.’ But then something shifted. I thought, ‘What do I really have to lose?’ I realized the only way I would know what I was capable of was to take the chance and try.”
Tiffany anchored her project in a fundamental reality: usability. Armed with a stack of complex city agency PDFs, she realized that New York's highly diverse populations, particularly older generations, non-native English speakers, and everyday citizens, can face significant barriers to understanding public information when it is buried beneath dense, institutional language.
Working under a tight deadline, she drew on the structured technical approaches she developed through her NYU labs to implement Google Gemini 2.5 Flash and process public-sector reports. The result was ‘Decoded NYC’: a civic transparency web app that uses Gemini 2.5 Flash to translate complex NYC algorithmic compliance reports into plain language by ZIP code. The platform is designed to turn dense government vernacular into accessible information, with multilingual support that helps local communities better understand the systems and technologies affecting them.
When the judges stepped up to announce the finalists, Tiffany was stunned to hear her project’s name called out. “It felt like a full-circle moment. As a first-generation, queer Latinx woman in tech, I looked around the room and didn’t see many people who looked like me. It reminded me why representation matters. We need more women, queer people, and people of color in these spaces. Win or lose, I knew that what I built could make an impact, and that felt like a major win in itself."
Engineering Tech for Good
Today, Tiffany continues to balance a demanding schedule: a master’s curriculum, summer courses, and an ongoing technical internship with Develop for Good, where she helps digitize and strengthen web platforms for nonprofit organizations.
When asked how she manages the demands of a packed schedule, her philosophy remains remarkably grounded: “The work doesn’t really stop, but when you’re passionate about what you’re doing, it starts to feel more natural. You find the motivation to keep going because you know what you’re working toward.”
To any prospective students or self-taught builders currently sitting on the fence about entering the cybersecurity space or jumping into public sector hackathons, Tiffany offers a signature piece of advice: Just do it. “You don’t lose anything by putting yourself in these spaces, and you never lose by learning. Take the opportunity, even when you don’t feel completely ready. You owe it to yourself to find out what you’re capable of. Don’t let fear make the decision for you, because the moment you choose to try could be the moment that changes the direction of your life.”
Cybersecurity, M.S. Online