Wade Baker is a professor at Virginia Tech, teaching cybersecurity courses within the Master of IT and MBA programs for the university. In addition to his academic role, Wade remains active in the cybersecurity field through the Cyentia Institute, a research services firm he co-founded in 2016. Prior to this, he held positions as the VP of Strategy and Analytics at ThreatConnect and the Managing Director and CTO for Security Solutions at Verizon. He created and led Verizon's annual Data Breach Investigations Report series, widely regarded across the industry for understanding threat trends and prioritizing defenses.