Mike Thompson is a Staff Privacy Engineer at Google. He leads a team of Privacy Engineers focused on improving privacy, security, and user agency for Android devices by pragmatic and incremental changes to policies and infrastructure systems. He occasionally steps in as a guest lecturer at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) in Mbour, Senegal. Before (this most recent tour of duty at) Google, Mike did InfoSec research, engineering, and analysis at Argonne National Laboratory, developing and patenting innovative security solutions including moving target defense technologies. He has lead and contributed to several projects including a variety of research for Argonne and analysis projects for the Department of Homeland Security. He specializes in system of systems analysis, consensus building, leadership, Internet infrastructire, penetration testing, programming, linux system administration, and datacenter / network operations and analysis.

In previous lives, Mike has taught high school and community education classes on technology, sound engineering, and ESL - he was an Operations technician and System Administrator for Google during the early days of their great global datacenter expansion -- and he has sold roadside produce all over the upper Midwest. His eclectic experience gives him a unique insight into the problems of critical infrastructure analysis, information security and privacy.