David Mussington

David Mussington is a professor of the practice at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and an affiliate researcher at UMD's ARLIS UARC. He previously served as executive assistant director for infrastructure security at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He was one of three presidentially appointed officials responsible for the security and resilience of the nation's 16 critical infrastructure sectors. 

Mussington was elected to the ISC2 Board of Directors for the 2026-28 term and is a fellow of the Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology and co-chair of ICIT's Center for FCEB Resilience. Since leaving federal service in January 2025, Mussington's research has focused on cyber defense of critical infrastructures, AI governance and frontier AI capacity uplift and risk management. From 2010 to 2013, Mussington served on the White House National Security Council staff as director –  surface transportation security policy and was senior advisor for cyber policy for the U.S. Department of Defense Office of the Undersecretary for Policy. 

Mussington's background includes work at RAND Corporation, the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), and private sector roles in infrastructure security at the American Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak), and consulting CISO advisory services to Canada's Central Bank, the Bank of Canada. He holds a Ph.D. in political science from Canada's Carleton University and B.A. and M.A. degrees in economics and political science from the University of Toronto. He is an internationally known expert on AI applied to cyberspace operations, and is an advisor to NATO DEEP and the Partnership for Peace Consortium in both curriculum design and editorial board roles. In 2021, Mussington was elected a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.