Senior Advisor for Cybersecurity Strategy to the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA)
Mr. Rob Joyce is the Senior Advisor for Cybersecurity Strategy to the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA). Rob has worked at NSA since 1989, holding various leadership positions within both focus areas of NSA: the Cybersecurity and Signals Intelligence missions.
His previous assignment was Special Assistant to the President and Cybersecurity Coordinator at the White House where he led the development of national and international cybersecurity strategy and policy for the United States and oversaw implementation of those policies. He ensured that the Federal Government was effectively partnering with the private sector, nongovernmental organizations, all branches and levels of government, and other nations. In addition to the Cybersecurity Coordinator role, Rob was the Acting Deputy Homeland security advisor for six months and the Acting Homeland Security Advisor for a month, covering topics well beyond cybersecurity to include terrorism, health security and disaster response/recovery.
From 2013 to 2017, Rob served as the Chief of Tailored Access Operations (TAO), the NSA’s mission element that provided tools and expertise in computer network exploitation to deliver foreign intelligence. Prior to becoming the Chief of TAO, Rob served as the Deputy Director of the Information Assurance Directorate (IAD) at NSA, where he led efforts to harden, protect and defend the Nation’s most critical National Security systems and improve cybersecurity for the nation. He was elevated to the Senior Executive Service in 2001.
Mr. Joyce began his career as an engineer and is a technologist at heart. He received his Bachelors Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Clarkson University in 1989 and earned a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University in 1993. Throughout his career with NSA, he has been the recipient of three Presidential Rank Awards: distinguished (2017), distinguished (2011) and meritorious (2006).
Mr. Joyce has served as a Scout Master and, until lawyers got in the way, enjoyed participating with the Boy Scouts in the annual World Championship of Punkin Chunkin, building a contraption to fling pumpkins for distance. Over the Christmas holidays, he runs a computerized light display synchronized to music, which is likely visible from the International Space Station.