I’m Dr. Mic Merritt, founder of Merritt Collective, a computer scientist and offensive cybersecurity leader focused on frontier-model evaluation, AI red teaming, and adversarial emulation. My experience spans national-security cyber operations, enterprise security engineering, AI security research, and cybersecurity education.

Merritt Collective: AI security research and consulting

Through Merritt Collective, I conduct cybersecurity evaluations of frontier models, assessing reasoning, attack paths, exploitation workflows, and emerging offensive capabilities. I design extended multi-turn adversarial trajectories and apply structured criteria for technical correctness, reasoning quality, progression, demonstrated impact, hallucinations, and unsafe behavior.

I also review and refine evaluations produced by other researchers, assessing realism, consistency, capability boundaries, and harm.

As founder of Merritt Collective, I advise organizations on AI security, adversarial risk, governance, and the security implications of AI adoption.

Offensive security and cyber leadership

My background includes 24 years of United States Air Force service and cyber leadership. At Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, I served as a Senior Principal Security Engineer, directing offensive-security and adversary-emulation operations against hyperscale cloud infrastructure and working with engineering teams on multi-tenant Kubernetes security.

Computer science research and education

I hold a Doctor of Computer Science from Colorado Technical University. My dissertation, Cognitive Diversity in Cybersecurity Education: A Participatory Action Research Study, explores the learning experiences of neurodiverse cybersecurity undergraduates.

From 2023 to 2026, I taught cybersecurity at Western Governors University. I received the 2025 School of Technology Instructor of the Year award. I am no longer affiliated with WGU. Through MyByte, I continue to support practical cybersecurity and AI education.

A practical, inclusive approach

My experience as a neurodivergent and queer professional informs my commitment to accessible education and environments where different approaches to problem-solving are valued. Many people know me as The Cyber Hammer through my writing, teaching, speaking, and mentoring.

Across research, offensive security, and education, I focus on evidence, clear technical reasoning, and useful outcomes.