Senior Director and Principal Investigator, National Cybersecurity Centers 

Michele Robinson currently serves as the Senior Director and Principal Investigator (PI) of National Cybersecurity Training and Education (NCyTE) Center and CAE Candidates National Center (CCNC) at Whatcom Community College.

She has 20+ years of experience and proven leadership at the senior and executive levels in information security and 30 years of experience in significant public policy and program formulation and execution, making positive impacts at both the state and national levels.

Michele served on the NCyTE National Visiting Committee for 10 years, before her appointment as Senior Director and PI. Between May 2013 to March 2016, Michele served as the Director of the California Office of Information Security (OIS) and State Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown. Michele joined OIS in 2007 and assumed the position of Acting Director in February 2013, where she served as the liaison to federal, State and local government on cyber security policies and issues. From 2010 to 2013, she served as Deputy CISO, managing the day-to-day operations of OIS and the statewide information security program.

Prior to joining OIS, Michele served as the CISO and Privacy Officer for the California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board (CUIAB) for 5 years. Prior to her appointment with CUIAB she worked for the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) for 8 years, serving on policy development, new program implementation, business process reengineering and system design and integration committees, and representing DCA and its constituent board and bureau programs at task force meetings, board meetings and special meetings with control agencies and members of the Legislature. During her tenure at DCA she managed the office and staff responsible for occupational analyses and test validation functions serving the 30+ professional licensure programs regulated under the DCA oversight umbrella and established their first continuous on-demand computer-based testing program.

Michele also has 10 years of experience in the financial services sector where she has held manager, supervisor, and fraud investigator positions focused on loss prevention and recovery. She holds a Bachelor of Science in information systems from the University of San Francisco, and CISSP, CISM, CISA and CDPSE certifications.