2002
Michael Vatis is Director of the Institute for Security Technology Studies (ISTS) at Dartmouth College. Mr. Vatis joined Dartmouth in March 2001. As Director of ISTS, Michael leads ISTS in its mission as a national counterterrorism and cyber security research and development center.
Prior to joining ISTS, Mr. Vatis founded and served as the first Director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) in Washington, D.C. NIPC is the lead federal agency responsible for detecting, warning of and responding to cyber attacks, including computer crime, cyber terrorism and cyber espionage.
An attorney, Mr.Vatis has also served in the U.S. Departments of Justice and Defense. As Associate Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Director for the Executive Office for National Security, he developed policy and advised the Attorney General on national security issues, including high-tech crime, encryption, counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, foreign policy, defense and infrastructure protection.
Mr. Vatis earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1988, graduating Magna Cum Laude and serving as Supervising Editor of The Harvard Law Review. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, where he majored in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
Mr. Vatis practiced law with the firm Mayer, Brown & Platt in Washington, D.C., specializing in Supreme Court and appellate litigation, before entering government service.
Mr. Vatis clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and for Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
