HAMBURG, N.Y. (WKBW) — 20-year-old Monika Benesh is from Hamburg and is an intelligence major at Mercyhurst College in Erie, Pennsylvania.
A recent assignment for the college's Center for Intelligence, Research, Analysis and Training, turned into something much bigger for her.
“My group wanted me to make a document about Russian planes, for example, how to tell if it's a civilian plane versus not," Benesh said. "And my boss is like, 'OK, you have free reign, do whatever you want.'”
She ended up building a 98-page database of all the information she could find from open-source material on Russian military and civilian aircraft. She said she couldn't find any place where they were all compiled together like how she had done — so she thought it might be useful to the U.S. military. She offered up her research to an Army representative at her college.
The next day, she got an email saying the Army wanted to publish her entire document on OE Data Integration Network.
“Holy cow," Benesh said she thought to herself when she opened the email. "I was in class. I was like about to take a final, and I just got that big news and I started shaking with excitement.”
Her advisor, Brian Fuller, who is the executive director of the Center for Intelligence, Research, Analysis and Training couldn't be prouder.
“It really is an amazing feat for a young student, 20 years old, just learning the intelligence profession. To already be being published at a senior level type of product from senior analysts. I'm not talking senior level students, I'm talking senior analysts in the in the intel community," he told me.
Benesh's mother, Kittie, said her daughter has always had a knack for this kind of work. She recalled one time when Monica was about 10 or 11 years old, she came running up to her while she was relaxing in the pool.
"She's like, 'Hey mom, can we call this agency? Because I think somebody out there is in danger,'" Kittie Benesh said.
Monika Benesh had apparently stumbled upon a suspicious social media posting.
"I think I've turned in over 18 tips, including one about human trafficking where kids are being trafficked," Monika Benesh said.
She hopes to become an intelligence analyst after she graduates.
"First I wanted to join the military, but I was like, oh, I think my calling is somewhere else," she said. "Doing stuff like this will still help my country while still honoring them."
