Donna F. Dodson is the Chief Cybersecurity Advisor for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). She is also the Director of NIST’s National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE).

Donna oversees ITL’s cyber security program to conduct research, development and outreach necessary to provide standards, guidelines, tools, metrics and practices to protect the information and communication infrastructure. In addition, Donna guides ITL programs to support both national and international security standards activities. She recently led the establishment of the NIST NCCoE. Through partnerships with state, local and industry, the NCCoE collaborates with industry sectors to accelerate the widespread adoption of standards-based cyber security tools and technologies.

Donna’s research interests include applied cryptography, key management, authentication and security testing. She has led technical teams to produce standards, guidelines and tools in each of these areas.

Donna received two Department of Commerce Gold Medals and three NIST Bronze Medals. She was a Fed 100 Award winner for her innovations in cybersecurity and in 2011 was included in the top 10 influential people in government information security. Recently, Donna was recognized as one of DC’s Top 50 Women in Tech.