Lester Godsey is the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) at Arizona State University, the largest U.S. public university by enrollment. Previously CISO for Maricopa County, he guided cybersecurity operations through one of the nation’s most contentious election periods. With over 30 years in public-sector IT, Lester is a sought-after speaker on cybersecurity, data management, and telecommunications. He holds PMP, CISM, and CISSP certifications and has taught technology and cybersecurity courses for nearly 15 years. A published author, he earned a BA in Music and an MS in Technology from ASU, blending creativity with technical expertise.
Read about Lester's perspective on how Arizona State University is operationalizing AI across the largest public university in the U.S. without compromising security or values. Godsey outlines how ASU built a secure, no-code LLM platform supporting over 60 models, deployed AI bots to interpret new security standards, and launched student-facing hackathons on AI threat response. He also opens up about the rise of prompt injection and deepfakes, and why threat intel democratization may finally be in reach.
