dam Clayton Powell III is executive director of the USC initiative on election cybersecurity, in association with USC’s schools of business, engineering, law and public policy and the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. With support from Google, this bipartisan initiative provides in-state training in all 50 states to reinforce election integrity and build defense against digital attacks.

Powell is a senior fellow and director of Washington programs for the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership and Policy. He is also a senior fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and is a member of the Public Diplomacy Council of the United States, of which he served as president from 2015 until 2019. Before his move to Washington in 2010, he was USC’s Vice Provost for Globalization, opening new USC facilities in Shanghai and Seoul and supporting USC initiatives worldwide. Previously he was Director of the USC Integrated Media Systems Center, a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center in the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

Earlier roles include Vice President/Technology and Programs of the Freedom Forum and the Newseum; Executive Producer at Quincy Jones Entertainment; and Vice President for News and Information programming at National Public Radio.

Previously Powell spent sixteen years at CBS News and at CBS-owned television and radio stations in New York, including as writer for Walter Cronkite for CBS News space coverage; News Director of all-news WINS radio, leading it to be the #1 station in New York; Manager of News Operations for CBS News; Manager of CBS News Special Events and Political Coverage for the 1980 election; and Coordinating Producer of the CBS Morning News with Charles Kuralt.