Dr. Thomas Berson is a cryptographer who views cryptography as the deep study of trust and betrayal, alternatively as the use and abuse of secrets. He has spent his career working on both the defensive and offensive sides of the information security battle. He is attracted most strongly to security issues raised in the intersection of technology, business, and world events. He is a student of Sun Tzu’s Art of War and its applicability to modern information conflict. He has lectured on that topic in Washington, Beijing, and Stanford.

Dr. Berson is Advisor to the CEO and Board of Directors at Salesforce. His portfolio includes cybersecurity, national security, and geopolitical matters. Anagram Laboratories, Dr. Berson’s cybersecurity consultancy, will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2026. 

Dr. Berson was the first person to be elected a Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research. He was an editor of the Journal of Cryptology for fourteen years. He is a Past-Chair of the IEEE Technical Committee on Security and Privacy, and a Past-President of the International Association for Cryptologic Research.

Dr. Berson is an elected Member of the US National Academy of Engineering. His NAE citation reads, “For contributions to cybersecurity in the commercial and intelligence communities.” His National Research Council committee memberships include the Forum on Cybersecurity Resilience, the Committee on Computer Security in the Department of Energy, the Committee to Review DoD C4I Plans and Programs, and the Committee on Offensive Information Warfare.

Dr. Berson earned a B.S. in physics from the State University of New York and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of London. He was a Visiting Fellow in Mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge.

Dr. Berson’s Erdös Number is 2; his amateur radio call sign is ND2T.

Elaine Korzak is a research scholar at the Berkeley Risk and Security Lab (BRSL) at UC Berkeley where she focuses on international cybersecurity governance. She is also an affiliate at the Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC) at UC Berkeley and the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University.

Her research covers international legal, policy, and governance aspects in cybersecurity, including norms and international law governing state conduct in cyberspace, cybersecurity negotiations at the United Nations, and the international regulation of commercial spyware. Her work has appeared in the Oxford Handbook of Cyber Security, the Routledge Handbook of International Cybersecurity, the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and RUSI Journal.

Previously, Elaine was a cybersecurity postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and a national fellow at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University, before leading the Cyber Initiative at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey (MIIS). She holds a PhD in War Studies and an MA in International Peace and Security from King’s College London, as well as an LL.M. in Public International Law from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

John Villasenor is on the faculty at UCLA, where he is a professor of electrical engineering, public policy, law, and management as well as the director of the Institute for Technology, Law and Policy. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Villasenor’s work considers the broader impacts of key technology trends, including the growth of artificial intelligence, advances in digital communications, and the increasing complexity of today’s networks and systems. He writes frequently on these topics and on their implications with respect to cybersecurity, privacy, law, and business.

He has published in the Atlantic, Billboard, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Fast Company, Forbes, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, Scientific American, Slate, the Washington Post, and in many academic journals. He has also provided congressional testimony on multiple occasions on topics including drones, privacy, and intellectual property law.

Before joining the faculty at UCLA, Villasenor was with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he developed methods of imaging the earth from space. He holds a BS from the University of Virginia and an MS and PhD from Stanford University.