Diana L. Burley, Ph.D., is the senior vice president of research at the Brookings Institution, where she plays a crucial role in research quality, scholar culture and success, impact planning, and cross-program initiatives. A global cybersecurity expert, she joins Brookings from American University where she served as vice provost for research and innovation since 2020, overseeing the university-wide research enterprise as both chief research officer and chief innovation officer. At AU, she also served as a tenured full professor and led two research institutes, the Khan Cyber & Economic Security Institute and the Translating Research into Action Center (TRAC). An active researcher, Diana has authored nearly 100 publications, regularly advises executives on emerging technologies and the future of work, and has co-chaired multiple National Academies reports including “Professionalizing the Nation’s Cybersecurity Workforce” (2013) and “Research and Application in Team Science (2025).
Prior to American University, Diana spent 14 years at George Washington University as a professor, administrator, and executive director of the Institute for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P)—a 26-member cybersecurity research consortium—and co-chaired the global ACM joint task force that established cybersecurity curricular guidelines for post-secondary academic institutions. Her board service includes the Cyber Future Foundation and the Global Cyber Security Advisory Group, and she has been honored by GET Cities, Executive Women’s Forum, SC Magazine, the Federal CIO Council, and others for her leadership in building the global cybersecurity workforce. She is an elected fellow of that National Academy of Public Administration.
Diana earned her Ph.D. in organization science and information technology, along with master’s degrees in organization science and public policy and management, from Carnegie Mellon University, and her bachelor’s degree in economics from The Catholic University of America.
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Current Positions
- Research Appointment, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
- Research Appointment, Idaho National Laboratory
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Past Positions
- Vice Provost for Research and Innovation, American University
- Vice Provost for Research, American University
- Professor (Public Affairs & Policy, SPA; Information Technology & Analytics, Kogod), American University
- Executive Director & Chair, Institution for Information Infrastructure Protection (I3P), The George Washington University
- Interim Associate Dean, Research & External Relations, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, The George Washington University
- Inaugural Chair, Department of Human & Organizational Learning, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, The George Washington University
- Director, Executive Leadership Doctoral Program, Graduate School of Education and Human Development, The George Washington University
- Professor, Human & Organizational Learning, The George Washington University
- Associate Professor, Human & Organizational Learning, The George Washington University
- Program Director, Computer Science Education, Directorate for Education and Human Resources, National Science Foundation
- Assistant Professor, Information Management, Syracuse University
- Assistant Professor, Information Systems, Indiana University
- Instructor, Computer and Information Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University
- Adjunct Instructor, Computer Science, The Pennsylvania State University
- Board Member, Human Systems Integration, U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
- Robotics Institute Research Fellow, Carnegie Mellon University, Robotics Institute
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Education
- Ph.D., Organization Science and Information Technology, Carnegie Mellon University
- M.S., Organization Science, Carnegie Mellon University
- M.S., Public Policy and Management, Carnegie Mellon University
- B.A., Economics, The Catholic University of America