Brant Cheikes

Brant Cheikes is a computer scientist with technical leadership/management experience in artificial intelligence, data science, computer networking and cybersecurity. Brant spent most of his career as an IT professional at The MITRE Corporation in Bedford MA. At MITRE, Brant held a variety of roles including project leader, principal scientist, technical advisor, and associate department head, supporting U.S. government clients in the Air Force, Army, Department of Homeland Security, Intelligence Community, National Institute of Standards and Technology, and more. In 2016, Brant left MITRE to become the Executive Director of the Center for Data Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a position he held through 2021. In 2022 he left UMass to pursue his desire to teach computer science at the college level. He currently holds teaching appointments at Holyoke Community College and Smith College. Brant earned a bachelor's degree in computer engineering at Boston University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science at the University of Pennsylvania.