Cindy Lawton was an Empire State University alumni and a former classmate of Peter Parker. In order to help tackle the ever-growing issue of campus plagiarism, she helped create Watchr, a bleeding-edge anti-plagiarism software. When first unveiling this innovation, she invited Peter from the audience to demonstrate the program, and passed his graduate paper through Watchr. Since Peter had actually graduated from E.S.U. when his body was under the possession of Otto Octavius, Watchr determined Peter's paper had been plagiarized from Octavius' work. The E.S.U. review board revoked Peter's academics credentials, though he was given a chance to course again.
