Dr. Vincent Nestler serves as Director of the Center for Cyber and AI and Associate Professor at California State University, San Bernardino. With over two decades of experience in network administration and security, he brings a wealth of practical and academic expertise to cybersecurity education. Dr. Nestler is the Primary Investigator for the NICE Challenge Project, developing real-world scenarios that provide students with crucial workforce experience before entering the field. His academic credentials include a Ph.D. in instructional design, a master's in network security from Capitol College, and an M.A.T. from Columbia University. Dr. Nestler's military service includes roles as a Data Communications Maintenance Officer in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, where he designed training for the DISA Computer Emergency Response Team. Currently, Dr. Nestler leads the Centers of Academic Excellence competency development working group and co-authored the Competency in Cybersecurity Education Handbook. His recent work includes serving on external red teams for frontier commercial LLMs, bridging the gap between cybersecurity and artificial intelligence. He is also the author of the McGraw Hill-published "Principles of Computer Security, Lab Manual," a cornerstone text in cybersecurity education.
