A skilled researcher, Heena never lets her past success deter her from striving for more. She thinks that a person's profession is greatly shaped by both their education and experience and places emphasis on practical knowledge.

An Assistant Professor at Texas State University, Heena Rathore works in the area of Computer Systems Security, especially Cryptography and her research interest is mainly in developing security solutions for physical cyber systems such as Internet of Things (IoT) devices and connected vehicles.

Born and raised in Udaipur, the city of lakes, Heena completed her schooling at St. Mary’s Convent Sr. Sec. School. Thereafter, she proceeded to do her Bachelor in Technology from the College of Technology and Engineering in Udaipur itself. She further pursued her PhD at IIT-Jodhpur. She decided not to stop and went on to pursue a postdoctoral degree from Wichita State University, Kansas, United States, followed by her research work, in association with Temple University, the University of Idaho and Qatar University. After doing extensive studies in her field, she worked as a Data Scientist and Program Manager for a company in Austin. Thereafter, she started teaching as an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and is presently working at Texas State University.

Explaining how she got inclined towards the teaching field, Heena mentions that after completing her PhD when she started working in the industry, she realized that in industry, we have to work according to what they specify. However, this deprived her of pursuing her own research work, which she was more passionate about, and so, after gaining experience for two years, she finally decided to move to academia.

When asked about her role models, Heena says she considers her father, Dr. Narendra Singh Rathore, Campus Director at GITS, Udaipur her role model. She admires him for the hard work that he puts into all his work and is thankful for his guidance, which enlightened her with his perspective on how she needs to balance her extracurricular activities and studies in order to achieve what she wants to achieve in life. She credits him with shaping her career by letting her know about all the opportunities available in academia as well as in industry. She remembers the lessons and advice of her father when they used to go for morning walks while she was still in school.

The quote, “If you cannot be the sun in the sky, be a star, but be the best star in the sky,” has always motivated her in every walk of her life, and helped her to be the best version of herself.

Being a social person and having a lot of friends, ultimately resulted in her devoting a lot of time to her friends rather than studying. She believes she neglected her studies in those crucial times when she should have focused on building her foundations. Learning from her previous mistakes, she learned to strike a balance between her social and professional lives.

Talking about her achievements, Heena says earning additional degrees apart from her research work at this young age is no less than an achievement for her. She believes that the transition from completing her PhD at IIT-Jodhpur to pursuing her post-doctoral in the US has played a pivotal role in shaping her career. Besides that, she has received numerous accolades and awards for her research work on IoT devices, medical devices, and connected vehicles. She is appreciated by her students for her way of delivering lectures and mentoring them to help them choose their careers. She does not let her recent accomplishments stop her, and aspires to achieve more in the coming years.

Heena emphasizes gaining practical knowledge in addition to understanding the theory, which might come in handy in the current scenario with the innovations in AI tools such as Chat GPT and many more. She suggests that aspiring teachers and students give equal importance to practical and theoretical knowledge, which will definitely help them in shaping up the fundamental knowledge of every topic in their fields. Sharing her own experience, she mentions that while she was studying at IIT-Jodhpur, she learned to deploy her theoretical knowledge of running algorithms to actual devices. She also suggests building the needed research skills.

Motivating the research students, she says that it takes time to build your own knowledge, but do not get discouraged by the failures and keep trying until you reach your goals. To the youth, she advises them to utilize their time and technology available in an effective manner rather than wasting their valuable time on social media and watching reels. She stresses the importance of surrounding yourself with the right company of friends who help you succeed in your life.

She also believes that education, in addition to experience, plays an important role in shaping your career.