Biography
Sonya Worrell is an Instructor of Practice in Computer Science at Johnson C. Smith University, where she teaches responsible AI, AI prompting, and digital literacy, and where she led the establishment of the university as a Cisco Networking Academy. More than 700 students have since earned Cisco and IBM SkillsBuild micro-credentials in areas including CCNA, computer hardware, artificial intelligence foundations, and Python programming. She chartered both the IEEE Student Branch and the Eta Chapter of Upsilon Pi Epsilon, the computer science honor society, at JCSU, and she redesigned the university's Computer Networking course around the Cisco CCNA curriculum after completing Cisco instructor training.
Her career began in mainframe operations at IBM in Research Triangle Park, monitoring VM and MVS systems before moving into a worldwide commodities management role. That foundation now anchors her doctoral research in Applied Science and Technology at North Carolina A&T State University, which examines mainframe technology and artificial intelligence integration. She holds a Master of Science in Cybersecurity and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Norfolk State University, and a graduate business degree from Strayer University.
Beyond the classroom, Sonya leads curriculum development and apprenticeship placement for Be Prepared America, where she designed United States Department of Labor Registered Apprenticeship Programs in cybersecurity support, cloud support, and health information technology, and positioned them as an NCWorks eligible training provider. She also positioned Be Prepared America as Registered Apprenticeship Ambassadors with the United States Department of Labor. She is also co-founder and COO of The HBCU Nation, and built media platforms HBCUiRadio and HBCU Smart TV, distributed across streaming services, Roku, and Amazon Fire TV.
