Joseph Williams
Associate Professor & Director of Cybersecurity Programs
About
Dr. Joseph Williams is an associate professor of cybersecurity in the Computer Science Department. Dr. Williams also serves as the Director of Cybersecurity Programs, bringing more than three decades of leadership at the intersection of technology, government, and higher education. In this role, he oversees the operations and curriculum of Western's Cybersecurity 2+2 bachelor's degree — offered in Bellingham, Kirkland, and Poulsbo in partnership with 16 community colleges across the state — and supports the Computer Science Department's continued membership in the Department of War's Cyber Service Academy.
Professor Williams comes to Western following a career that spans the public, private, and academic sectors. He most recently served as Interim Director of Washington's State Broadband Office, where he managed the state's $1.2 billion federal broadband buildout and negotiated delivery contracts with providers across Washington, and as governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) practice director at Artemis Connection. Earlier in his career, he was the state's Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Sector Lead and Director of ICT Economic Development for the Washington State Department of Commerce under two governors, work that included representing the state on trade missions focused on cybersecurity and quantum computing and chairing the Governor's Semiconductor Task Force.
In the private sector, Dr. Williams was Global Partner in Charge of Infosys Consulting's Cybersecurity Practice, where he built a global advisory practice serving CISOs, CPOs, and corporate boards, and he spent nearly a decade at Microsoft, rising to Chief Technology Officer for Enterprise Sales He also directed the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's Seattle Research Center for the U.S. Department of Energy
Dr. Williams brings nearly 20 years of higher-education teaching and administrative experience to Western, most recently as Dean of Seattle Pacific University's School of Business, Government, and Economics. He has also held faculty appointments at Colorado State University, the University of Montana, New Mexico State University, and Bucknell University.
For his civic contributions to Washington's technology sector, Williams was named GeekWire's 2025 Public Policy Champion for Innovation. He is a Visiting Fellow at George Mason University's National Security Institute and was a former Fellow of Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. He has served as Associate Editor and Guest Editor of IEEE Computer, authored three books on computing, and holds a Microsoft-assigned U.S. patent in location-based search.
Educational & Professional Experience
Williams earned his Ph.D. and M.B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, an M.A. in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and a B.A. in Rhetoric and Economics from the University of California, Berkeley.