Professor Vann is the director of the Marshall Center’s Program on Countering Transnational Organized Crime and a professor of Transnational Security Studies. Professor Vann’s expertise lies in addressing transnational security challenges, developing national security strategies, and other strategy approaches to solving national security threats. He has more than thirty-eight years of government service with more than nine years association with the Marshall Center. Professor Vann has been a member of the teaching faculty for the Program on Terrorism Security Studies, the Program on Applied Security Studies, the Program on Cyber Security Studies, the Program on Countering Transnational Organized Crime, and other resident and non-resident Marshall Center programs. From 2011-2014, Professor Vann served at the Marshall Center as a professor of national security studies and the first faculty chair for the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.

A veteran of the U.S. Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Mr. Vann served as a special agent for more than 31 years. He held a variety of senior management and field positions with NCIS and the Department of the Navy to include assignments as the strategic advisor to three NCIS directors; NCIS Deputy Assistant Director for cyber operations; counterintelligence advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, and Space; senior advisor for combating terrorism and counterintelligence to the commander, U.S. Navy Warfare Development Command in Newport, Rhode Island; Director of the Combating Terrorism, Warfare Development Integration Team at the U.S. Navy Warfare Development Command; Assistant Special Agent In Charge of operations, NCIS field office, Manama Bahrain; Supervisory Special Agent, NCIS field office Washington DC; counterintelligence advisor to the Office of Naval Intelligence; and additional field assignments in London, UK, and Naples, Italy, pertaining to combating terrorism, criminal investigations, and counterintelligence.

Mr. Vann earned a master’s degree in policy management from the Georgetown University Public Policy Institute and a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics from Florida State University.