Cindy Starns is the Supervisory Special Agent (SSA) of the Cyber Squad in the FBI’s Columbia Field Office in South Carolina. SSA Starns leads a squad conducting national security and criminal cyber investigations and works with local, federal, and international partners. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in Physics from the College of William and Mary, she worked in IT for ten years and then began her career with the FBI as a Special Agent in 2004. SSA Starns worked cyber investigations for nine years then spent five years at FBI Headquarters developing new technical capabilities for Counterterrorism investigations. She was given the 2017 FBI Director’s Award for Excellence in Training and the 2020 FBI Director’s Award for Outstanding Technical Advancement.