Dr. James Bret Michael
Vice Provost for Academic Affairs
 

Dr. Bret Michael is the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, and a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering. As the chair of the Cyber Academic Group (2021 to 2023), he led the NPS' interdisciplinary education and research programs in cyber operations. Dr. Michael applies his expertise in artificial intelligence, formal methods, and distributed computing to advance capabilities for improving the dependability and trustworthiness of national security systems. Dr. Michael received his Ph.D. in Information Technology from George Mason University in 1993. He completed the National Security Law Institute course at the University of Virginia, in addition to leadership and management courses through the Defense Acquisition University. Dr. Michael is the editor of the Cybertrust column of IEEE's Computer magazine and an associate editor-in-chief for Computer. He also served multiple terms as an associate editor-in-chief for IEEE Security & Privacy magazine. He has authored over 300 technical publications and two U.S. patents.

Prior to joining the NPS, Dr. Michael was a research engineer with the University of California, Berkeley’s California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) program (1994-1998), developing and demonstrating advanced vehicle control and safety systems for fully automated driving. He started his career in computing as a member of the research staff at the Institute for Defense Analyses (1987-1992), performing research to improve the applicability, usability, and scalability of engineering frameworks, processes, methods, and tools for developing and sustaining software-intensive defense systems. At Argonne National Laboratory (1992-1993), he was a formal methods engineer developing automated theorem proving techniques for use in real-time embedded system applications.

Dr. Michael is the recipient of several awards, including the: IEEE Reliability Society Engineer of the Year Award (2010), recognizing his contributions to the field of trustworthy distributed systems; Department of the Navy Meritorious Civilian Service Award for his leadership in advancing the state of the art and practice of cyber operations, including his contributions as the lead technical advisor and member of the editorial board that drafted the Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare (Cambridge University Press, 2013); National Intelligence Exceptional Achievement Medal (2017); IEEE Reliability Society Lifetime Achievement Award (2022) for sustained contributions to the methods, tools and education in the reliability assessment of hardware-software systems; and IEEE Fellow (2023) for contributions to the protection of critical infrastructure.