Michael Signer is an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech and chairs the Progressive Policy Institute’s E3 Initiative, an organization of small and mid-size energy companies that is developing and driving new policy frameworks in four areas: efficiency, national security, regulatory reform, and infrastructure investment.

Signer was a candidate for the 2009 Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor of Virginia, running on a platform that included substantial promotion of green tech and environmental protection. He previously practiced law at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr in Washington, D.C., was appointed Deputy Counselor to Governor Mark Warner in Richmond, and was the chief foreign policy advisor to the 2008 presidential campaign of John Edwards.

Signer recently served as Senior Policy Advisor at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, where he directed the Homeland Security Presidential Transition Initiative (HSPTI), a joint initiative with the think tank Third Way that helped the Obama administration decide to merge the Homeland Security Council and the National Security Council. He is a principal of the Truman National Security Project. At Virginia Tech, he teaches graduate classes on Islamic fundamentalism, political theory, democracy, and foreign policy. In 2009, Governor Tim Kaine appointed Signer to the Virginia Board of Medicine, a four-year term. He also was appointed by the Arlington County Board to Arlington County's Emergency Preparedness Advisory Committee (EPAC).

Signer is the author of Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy from Its Worst Enemies (Palgrave Macmillan 2009); the author of articles, essays, and opinion pieces in venues including The Washington Post, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The University of Richmond Law Review, and Democracy: A Journal of Ideas; and has commented on public affairs in broadcast media including MSNBC, the Fox News Channel, NPR, and the BBC. He has appeared on panels around the world to discuss national security and foreign affairs, including in Tremezzo, Italy (by the German Marshall Fund), Berlin, Germany (by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung), and Doha, Qatar (by the Doha Foundation and the BBC).

Signer holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley, a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, and graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, a block from his elementary school

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