SIA announces winners of 2024 Denis R. Hébert Identity Management Scholarship

SILVER SPRING, Md.—The Security Industry Association (SIA) has named two recipients for the 2024 Denis R. Hébert Identity Management Scholarship, a program offering $5,000 scholarships for young professional SIA members to help further their education in the field of identity management.

The winners for the 2024 Hébert Scholarship are Mariana Lima, data privacy analyst, legal, at dormakaba USA, and Samuel Silvamolina, electronic security systems engineer at M.C. Dean.

This scholarship program is named after Hébert, a longtime security industry executive and past member of SIA’s Board of Directors who served as SIA board chair from 2016 to 2018. It is designed to support the professional development goals of individual SIA members and student members who specialize in identity management – a field involving the systematic control of access, authenticating users, securing assets and protecting privacy. Identity management encompasses many aspects of risk management, public policy, fraud prevention, privacy, data analysis, risk and governance, information technology and security.

“My sincere congratulations to this year’s recipients of the Denis R. Hébert Identity Management Scholarship Awards, Mariana Lima and Samuel Silvamolina,” Hébert said. “Mariana and Samuel truly represent this industry’s future generation of leaders.”

With a distinguished legal education from one of Brazil’s most prestigious universities and an LLM degree set to be completed in the United States by December 2024, Lima brings a global perspective to her role at dormakaba, a player in access and security solutions since 2017.

As an attorney specializing in corporate law, she offers strategic guidance across Latin America, focusing on business agreements and corporate legal management, including litigation. Lima’s proficiency in data privacy and protection is demonstrated through her development and implementation of comprehensive standards across Latin America, coupled with ensuring regulatory compliance in the North America market. Known for her resilience, determination and adept communication skills, she thrives in managing complex issues and delivering successful outcomes while maintaining discretion and adaptability in high-pressure situations.

“The financial support provided by Denis R. Hébert Scholarship will significantly alleviate the burden of educational expenses associated with my ongoing master’s degree in law with a specialization in data privacy at Indiana University Bloomington,” Lima said. “These educational endeavors will significantly enhance my skills in cybersecurity, risk management and information security and enable me to champion more women in security across the world.”

Silvamolina is an electronic security systems engineer at M.C. Dean with almost 20 years of experience dedicated to physical security, fire and life safety and networking security, plus a wide electrical engineering background from electrical power, power electronics and digital electronics.

Besides a solid technical and theoretical background, Silvamolina has been working in the field even longer. The experience collected all these years is a combination of learning information with practical application of the conceptualization, understanding better how different systems can work or why installation, service or tests must be conducted under a specific protocol, code or standards. Silvamolina has been a proud member of the South Carolina Army National Guard since 2008, holding the rank of chief warrant officer 3 as a construction engineering technician, MOS 120A.

“The Denis R. Hébert Scholarship will enable me to pursue the education goals I never thought possible by affording me the financial resources to pursue my goals and dreams,” Silvamolina noted. “I will be using this award to deepen my professional knowledge of the security industry, specifically in cybersecurity and networking. My dream is to perform research and create new paths to make our world more secure.”

In 2018, SIA and the Board of Directors established the Denis R. Hébert Identity Management Scholarship program in recognition of the substantial subject matter expertise Hébert offered and continues to offer to SIA members. His input has helped businesses to interpret and influence identity management trends and achieve greater business success.

In his role as a leader on the SIA board, Hébert positively impacted SIA’s service to its members in the domain of identity management as evidenced through the development of many of its education, government relations and standards initiatives.

This year’s Hébert Scholarship awardees were recognized at the 2024 AcceleRISE conference, an event presented by the SIA RISE community for emerging security leaders. AcceleRISE 2024 was held Aug. 12-14 in Washington, D.C.