Rob Barnsby is the 5th Director and first-ever civilian leader of the Army Cyber Institute (ACI). He has spent over thirty years in service of the nation, most recently as a Vice Dean and tenured law professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Previously as the ACI Cyber Law Fellow, he developed and led all cyber law instruction for cadets while also advising the nation’s top undergraduate cyber policy team and teaching several semesters of constitutional and military law. Earning appointment as a Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, he developed and taught the law of war course at Berkeley Law, where he continues to teach international cyber law and has been named a Public Law & Policy Fellow.
Prior to his civilian teaching time at West Point, Rob served in the United States Army as both a Military Intelligence (MI) and Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps officer, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. He led large teams of military and civilian professionals as Chief Prosecutor at Fort Drum, New York; Chief of Administrative & Civil Law at XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Liberty, North Carolina, and as Army Materiel Command’s first-ever Acquisition Policy Law Team Lead at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama, among other key positions. His deployments include full-length tours as the lead Detention Operations and Information Operations Legal Advisor for U.S. forces in Afghanistan and leadership of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) units in Panama on behalf of Fort Eisenhower’s 513th MI Brigade. He taught for several years at TJAG’s Legal Center and School, leading the Army’s earliest efforts to teach cyber law to senior military leaders while also teaching intelligence law, information operations, and the law of war to military and civilian attorneys throughout the armed forces.
Rob has published scholarly articles in the TEXAS LAW REVIEW, ALABAMA LAW REVIEW, and MILITARY LAW REVIEW, and has co-authored scholarly articles in the HARVARD INTERNATIONAL REVIEW, JOURNAL OF CYBER POLICY, and CYBER DEFENSE REVIEW. In addition to cyber editorial board memberships, he has been an invited judge for several international cyber law competitions and served as an expert contributor to the first-ever NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence (CCD CoE) Cyber Law Toolkit. A featured speaker at the NATO CCD CoE’s international cyber conference in Tallinn, Estonia, he has also spoken on various subjects at law schools including Harvard, Texas, Pennsylvania, Emory, Pace, Cardozo, Santa Clara, and Berkeley; undergraduate institutions including West Point, Syracuse, and Bard College, and special ACI, Central Intelligence Agency, and International Committee of the Red Cross events, in addition to continuing legal education courses including the California Eastern District Judicial Conference, U.S. Army Europe Course, and several Government Acquisition Symposia.
A West Point graduate, Rob completed the MI Officer Basic Course (OBC), MI Captain’s Career Course, Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Officer Course, Basic and Refresher Airborne Courses, Judge Advocate OBC and Graduate Courses, Combined Arms Services and Staff School, and the Command and General Staff Officer Course (Resident CGSC). He earned his J.D. at William & Mary Law School, where he also served as Executive Editor of the WILLIAM & MARY LAW REVIEW. He holds advanced degrees in both international law (LL.M.) and military science (MMAS) and is a member of the Virginia State Bar, admitted to practice in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces, and the U.S. Supreme Court.