M. Brian Blake is an American computer scientist/software engineer and the eighth president of Georgia State University. He was previously the executive vice president for academic affairs and provost at George Washington University; executive vice president of academic affairs and the Nina Henderson Provost at Drexel University; the dean of the graduate school and vice provost for academic affairs at the University of Miami; an associate dean for research and professor at the College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame; and department chair and professor of computer science at Georgetown University. Blake was named as the most promising scientist in 2003 by Career Communications and recognized as a Top 10 Emerging Scholar in Diverse Issues in Higher Education. His research has received more than $12 million in funding, and he is an author of more than 225 scholarly publications. He is an ACM Distinguished Scientist and a Fellow of the IEEE. Blake has also been a strong adv