Ernesto Zaldivar

Ernesto Zaldivar is an Associate Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Brown University and a Cyber Law, Policy, and Strategy Non-Resident Fellow at West Point’s Army Cyber Institute. Professor Zaldivar is also the founder and Director of Brown’s Cybersecurity and Organizational Behavior in Diplomacy and Enterprise (CODE) Lab. 

He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and a former Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Fellow at Princeton University. Since September 2021, he has been a mentor for the Field X and Field Y MBA courses at Harvard Business School. In 2024, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) selected Professor Zaldivar as an AILA International Fellow.

Professor Zaldivar co-founded Brown’s Master of Science in Cybersecurity program and currently serves as Co-Chair of the program’s Executive Committee and Admissions Committee. He created and developed the courses CSCI 1360 Human Factors in Cybersecurity and CSCI 2999A Cybersecurity Management Within Business, Government, and Non-Profit Organizations. He teaches these courses along with CSCI 1800 Cybersecurity and International Relations.

Professor Zaldivar has conducted novel field research to benchmark the way that Fortune 500 companies, financial firms, and government entities approach teaching employees to spot malicious cyber actors. In 2019, the Financial Times and McKinsey & Company named him as a finalist for the Bracken Bower Prize for a book proposal based on his information security research.

In addition to earning his Executive Master in Cybersecurity at Brown, Professor Zaldivar earned his Doctor of Law (Juris Doctor) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Master of Education in Specialized Studies on Organizational Behavior, Management, and Training at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education.