Mohammed Almeshekah

Mohammed Almeshekah is the Chief Scientist for Forward Defense at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) based in Washington, D.C. Before joining CNAS in 2023, he served as Technical Director at the Qatar Computing Research Institute and worked as a cybersecurity researcher at Purdue University's CERIAS. Throughout his academic and professional career, he has authored over 50 peer-reviewed publications on resilient systems and contributed directly to national cybersecurity standards for NIST. In 2024, he published extensive research analyzing AI-enabled cyber threats, and he subsequently presented on resilient system design at the Black Hat USA 2025 conference. Almeshekah holds a doctorate in computer science from Purdue University. His current work focuses on bridging academia and industry to secure critical infrastructure, ensure artificial intelligence safety, and advance defense technology against emerging national security threats.