Software Engineering Institute

Melissa S. Vice is the Interim Director in the Vulnerability Disclosure Program (VDP) at the DoD Cyber Crimes Center (DC3), an Air Force Field Operating Agency (FOA). The DoD VDP was formed as follow-up to the Hack the Pentagon bug bounty program in 2016 to triage, validate, and mitigate crowd-sourced vulnerabilities for the Joint-Force Headquarters DoD Information Systems Network (JFHQ-DODIN). Formerly at the Pentagon, Ms. Vice was the Chief Technology Officer of the Business Mission Area (BMA) for The Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force, Management (SAF/MG) / Deputy Chief Management Office (DCMO) in charge of road-mapping 400+ information systems to the cloud. Prior to 11 years with the Department of Defense, Ms. Vice was in the private sector at General Electric (GE) Aviation Division, as a global database developer and administrator (Oracle DBDA) for all commercial and military aircraft engine repairs worldwide. While at GE among the world’s most talented aeronautical engineers, Ms. Vice had the thrill of a lifetime piloting her first 360 in a coworker’s restored 1957 Stearman (open cockpit bi-plane).

Ms. Vice earned a Bachelor and Master of Science in Cybersecurity from University of Maryland University College. She is the 2010 Gordon Prize winner from the UMD (Robert Smith School of Business) for her paper on Insider Threat, a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute (NSI) for 2021, and a national strategist in the Mitchell Institutes’ Project Everest think tank. Presented the U.S. Air Force Civilian Achievement Award in Jan. 2021 for team leadership and resiliency during COVID pandemic.