John Arquilla
John Arquilla is a Distinguished Professor of Defense Analysis at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. His interests extend from the history of irregular warfare to the strategic implications of the information revolution. He is the author of: The Reagan Imprint; Worst Enemy; Insurgents, Raiders, and Bandits; Afghan Endgames; and, most recently, Why the Axis Lost. Some principal publications from his years with the RAND Corporation think tank range from In Athena’s Camp to Networks and Netwars and, most recently, Whose Story Wins. The two earlier RAND books foretold problems of cyber insecurity, while the current monograph studies, among its other themes, the vulnerability of the United States to political warfare waged via social media. His commentaries have been widely published, including in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, Forbes, The Atlantic, Politico, and Foreign Policy Magazine. He has appeared on all the major network and cable news programs. In terms of policy work, Dr. Arquilla consulted to senior military commanders during Operation Desert Storm and the Kosovo War. He has continued in this capacity in several post-9/11 actions. In 2011 he served on a small team, working for President Barack Obama, who asked to be provided with some “new directions for American defense.” His forthcoming book is Blitzkrieg: The New Challenge of Cyberwarfare. 

Sally Baho
Ms. Sally Baho joined the United States Naval Postgraduate School in 2011 as a Faculty Associate in the Graduate School of Business and Public Policy. She supports research on strategic communication and organizational behavior per Navy-sponsored research agendas each fiscal year. She has played an active role on projects ranging from Social Media usage among young sailors in the Navy, Middle Manager Support for Strategic Change, and currently, developing a Situational Judgement Test on Grey-Zone Sexual Harassment and Gender Discrimination in the Navy and Marine Corps.  In addition to her support of academic research, she has worked with the former Partnership for Peace office in developing curricula for the Women, Peace, and Security workshop on the integration of women in Peacekeeping Operations with the United Nations. The workshop has since been executed, with her assistance, eight times in four Latin American nations with future events planned for the summer and fall.  Ms. Baho also serves as a copyeditor for the Combatting Terrorism eXchange (CTX) Journal, a quarterly journal under the global education community collaboration online (global ECCO). Research interests include social network analysis, organizational behavior, gender integration, and counterterrorism financing.  Languages: Native: English and Levantine Arabic (speaking); fluent in Spanish 

Leo Blanken
How do organizations respond when their legacy modes of operation no longer match their evolving strategic environment? I have worked on such topics for a number of entities across the Department of Defense. Leading teams of military officers, academics, and other experts, I have helped organizations rethink how they gather information, measure success, invest in infrastructure and - most importantly - link their daily activities to deeper strategic purpose.  I joined Defense Analysis in the summer of 2008. I have a BA from the University of San Francisco, an MA from Columbia University, and a PhD in political science from the University of California at Davis. My dissertation on patterns of imperial expansion received the best dissertation award from the Western Political Science Association and has been published as Rational Empires: Institutional Incentives and Imperial Expansion (University of Chicago Press, 2012). I have also co-edited Assessing War: The Challenge of Measuring Success and Failure (Georgetown University Press, 2015) and have published articles on strategy, metrics/assessment, intelligence, and emerging technology. 

Doug Borer
Research Interests:  Political Legitimacy in War. Comparative Strategy. Lessons of History in Great Power Competition. Rethinking Low-Tech. Conflict in the Asia-Pacific. Water and War. 

Robert Burks
Dr. Robert E. Burks, Jr. is a Senior Lecturer in the Defense Analysis Department of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). He holds a Ph.D. in Operations Research form the Air Force Institute of Technology and a M.S. in Operations Research from the Florida Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from the United States Military Academy. He is a retired logistics Army Colonel with more than thirty years of military experience in leadership, advanced analytics management and logistics operations who served as an Army Operations Research analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, TRADOC Analysis Center, United States Military Academy, and the United States Army Recruiting Command. He has led multiple analytical study teams responsible for Army Transformation (organizational change) issues and his work includes applying analytical methods to develop solutions for complex problems in support of the Combined Arms Support Command, the Army’s sustainment think tank and premier sustainment learning institution. In addition, he has served as the technical expert on studies involving deployment, equipping, manning, training, and logistics operations of military forces in multiple theaters of operation. He currently teaches the Modeling for Decision Making and Statistics Courses at NPS. His research interests include Irregular Warfare and Stability Operations modeling, Information Operations modeling, Wargaming and Agent Based Modeling and Simulation. His recent major awards include the Military Leadership Award (2013), Joint Service Warfare Award (2013), Military Operations Research Journal Award (2011) for developing analytical methods for solving the Theater Distribution Problem, and the Omar Bradley Fellowship for the Study of Mathematical Sciences (2011).   

Christopher Callaghan
Mr. Callaghan is a Faculty Associate for Research in the Common Operational Research Environment (CORE) Lab embedded in the Department of Defense Analysis at NPS. His work leverages open-source data analytics for understanding and modeling a variety of national and homeland security problems. Prior to joining the NPS, Chris served as a Research Associate at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) at Monterey where he worked on multiple efforts dealing with local and international ‘citizenship’. Chris received his MPA from MIIS and a B.S. in Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Chris is currently a Ph.D. student in Information Science at NPS.

Nathan Christensen
Mr. Nathan Christensen joined the United States Naval Postgraduate School in 2011 as a Faculty Associate and is the Deputy Director for Global ECCO (Education Collaboration Community Online), sponsored by the Regional Defense Fellowship Program (RDFP) under the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Global ECCO utilizes the full capabilities of NPS in a security cooperation mission, reaching out to partner countries to build sustainable capacity in the spirit of “Academic Diplomacy”. Prior to joining NPS, he spent 10 years developing and executing strategy and business development for large multi-national organizations. Additionally, he employed competitive intelligence training and expertise to make organizations more competitive relative to their environment and stakeholders: customers, competitors, distributors, technologies and macro-economic data etc. His areas of research interest include fiscal transparency/anti-corruption as well as counter terrorism & border security. He has developed and implemented DoS & DoD engagements on behalf of NPS in Brazil, Chile, India and Germany. He worked closely with the U.S. Embassy in Cairo to create & provide in-residence Border Security short courses for the Egyptian Ministries of Defense, Interior & Finance. This program was successfully expanded to Tunisia, Algeria & Morocco. After working in Chicago, Amsterdam and Los Angeles, Mr. Christensen moved to Monterey, California to join the NPS team. His responsibilities include international outreach and partnering efforts, program management, and leveraging opportunities to match academic and research capability & resources across Department of Defense, State Department, NATO and U.N. partner capacity building goals and objectives. Mr. Christensen received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a Minor in Spanish Language from Colorado State University in 1998 and received his MBA in International Management from Thunderbird in 2001. Additionally, he is fluent in Portuguese and proficient in Spanish.  

Daniel Cunningham
Mr. Cunningham is an Associate Faculty for Instruction at the Common Operational Research Environment (CORE) Lab embedded in the Naval Post­graduate School’s (NPS) Department of Defense Analysis in Monterey, CA. Dan earned his MA at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS) with a focus on terrorism studies. His research interests include visual analytics and the application of social network analysis to real-world problem sets. His book (written with Dr. Sean Everton and Dr. Phil Murphy), Understanding Dark Networks, was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2016. He helped lead the development of the CORE Lab’s social network analysis out­reach and education program as well as has worked with a wide range of practi­tioners, including U.S. Special Operations Forces, law enforcement, and international partners. Dan is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Informa­tion Sciences at the NPS.  

Justin Davis
During his 18 years of service, Commander Davis held command and staff assignments including: Platoon Commander, Troop Commander, Squadron Executive Officer, Community Manager, and Officer in Charge. He served his operational career at various East Coast-based SEAL teams at Virginia Beach, VA, including SEAL Teams EIGHT, TWO, and SEAL Delivery Vehicle (SDV) Team TWO, as well as multiple tours at Naval Special Warfare Development Group (NSWDG). He completed a staff tour as the NSW Enlisted Community Manager while assigned to the Bureau of Naval Personnel in Millington, TN, and most recently led the Experimental Squadron of NSWDG in Virginia Beach, VA. Commander Davis has completed 13 deployments in support of named and contingency operations in the CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and EUCOM areas of responsibility, in support of theater commander and national mission requirements.   

Michael Donovan
Professor Donovan is a serving CIA staff officer currently residing as the Director, Central Intelligence Agency’s representative to the Naval Postgraduate School and as the National Intelligence Chair in the Defense Analysis department. He has served in the Agency’s Counter Terrorism Center, Iran Operations Division, the Directorate of Analysis, and the Directorate of Digital Innovation. Professor Donovan has had three overseas PCS assignments and has deployed twice to war zones. As a CIA officer, Professor Donovan briefed some of the nation’s most senior civilian and military leadership on a variety of national security challenges. He joined the Agency in 2005.  Professor Donovan teaches course on CIA Covert Action and Human Intelligence Collection (HUMINT) in for Defense Analysis. His research interest focuses on the future of Covert Action in the context of Great Power Competition. He counsels students on research and theses topics that touch on national intelligence equities, the interagency environment, and aspects of Covert Action and HUMINT.   

Sean Everton
Mr. Sean Everton is a Professor in the Department of Defense Analysis and the Co-Director of the CORE (Common Operational Research Environment) Lab at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). Prior to joining NPS in 2007 he served as an adjunct professor at both Santa Clara and Stanford universities. He earned his MA and PhD in Sociology at Stanford University and wrote his doctoral thesis on the causes and consequences of status on venture capital firm performance. He has published in the areas of social network analysis, sociology of religion, economic sociology, and political sociology and currently specializes in the use of social network analysis to track and disrupt dark networks (e.g., criminal and terrorist networks). His first book, Disrupting Dark Networks, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2012, and his second book, Understanding Dark Networks (co-authored with Daniel Cunningham and Phil Murphy), was published by Rowman and Littlefield in 2016. His most recent book, Networks and Religion, which explores the interplay of networks and religion was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018.   

Michael Freeman
Research Interests: Terrorism and Counter-terrorism  Terrorist Financing  Strategic Gaming  International Security  U.S. Foreign Policy  International Relations Theory 

Brian Greenshields
Retired AF Special Operations Officer.  Teaching Interests: Strategy, Airpower, Special Operations 

Shannon Houck
Research Interests: Social psychology of influence; cognitive rigidity; extremism & violence; language analysis; experimental and quantitative methods 

Hyunsoo Hur
Dr. Hyunsoo Hur is currently co-leading Regional Defense Fellowship Program Evaluation Project, participating in the Assessment, Monitoring, and Evaluation efforts of Security Cooperation under the Office of the Secretary of Defense. She has joined Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in 2021. Prior to NPS, she was a tenured Associate Professor at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC), trained DLIFLC faculty, worked on technology-based language project with Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Lab, taught beginning, intermediate, and advanced level Korean to military linguists, designed courses for faculty and students, coordinated language immersion activities, and so forth. In addition to DLIFLC, she has taught undergraduate courses and worked as an Academic Counselor at the Pennsylvania State University, and was an adjunct faculty at the Graduate School of Education at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, Korea. She has presented at various conferences in U.S., Asia, and Europe, as well as US government-organized meetings. She has received Research Priorities Award from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and was selected for the NSA-funded STARTALK Leadership Training by Stanford University World Language Program. She currently serves as the Chair, Board of Directors for the Korean American Educational Researchers Association. She also serves as a Board of Directors for the International Language and Culture Foundation, as well as involved in other services.   Her areas of interest include language, culture, intercultural communication, linguistic anthropology, curriculum design, technology-integrated learning, learner experiences, teacher cognition & professional development, security cooperation AM&E.

Thomas Jamison
Research Interests: Military History; Pacific History; Chinese Foreign Relations; History of Technology; U.S. Military Development; Interstate/Imperial Competition. 

Amina Kator-Mubarez
Ms. Amina Kator-Mubarez joined the United States Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in 2011 and is currently a Faculty Associate for Global ECCO (Education Collaboration Community Online), sponsored by the Regional Defense Fellowship Program (RDFP) under the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Global ECCO utilizes the full capabilities of NPS in a security cooperation mission, reaching out to partner countries to build sustainable capacity in the spirit of “Academic Diplomacy”. Before joining the Global ECO team, she also worked as a Research Associate for the Program for Culture and Conflict Studies at NPS, where she drafted and briefed unclassified strategy papers related to counterinsurgency and stability operations in Afghanistan for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and United States Central Command. Lastly, she is fluent in Dari and proficient in Urdu.

Rebecca Lorentz
Ms. Rebecca Lorentz has been with the department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey since 2009. She received a Masters of Public Policy from the Panetta Institute of Public Policy in 2010. Her work has been published in Afghan Endgames (Georgetown University Press, 2012), and Gangs and Guerrillas (NPS, 2011) writing about the complexity of social issues and civil society. She is currently the Deputy Director of the DoD Information Strategy and Research Center at the Naval Postgraduate School. Current fields of study include misinformation, disinformation and how each are used in information operations to affect behavior and strategy as well as the role of cognitive biases in information warfare.

Ryan Maness
Ryan C. Maness is an Assistant Professor in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School. His research includes cyber conflict, cyber security, cyber coercion, cyber strategies, information warfare, Russian foreign policy, American foreign policy, and conflict-cooperation dynamics between states using Big Data. He is coauthor of Russia's Coercive Diplomacy: Energy, Cyber and Maritime Policy as New Sources of Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Cyber War versus Cyber Realities: Cyber Conflict in the International System (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Cyber Strategy: the Evolving Character of Power and Coercion (Oxford University Press).  Research Interests: Cyber Strategy, Cyber Conflict, International Relations, Quantitative Methods, Big Data Techniques, Russian Foreign Policy, US Foreign Policy.  

Julia McClenon
Research Interest: hybrid and irregular warfare; strategy and grand strategy; cognitive science; sociocultural anthropology  

Gordon McCormick
A variety of models for understanding insurgency and planning the counterinsurgency (COIN) response have been developed. One model that has become respected both in academic and military context is the "Magic Diamond" model developed by Dr. Gordon McCormick. The model involved four key elements or players, with mirrored strategies for their interactions. Each element will have a "mirrored" strategy, in which the way in which it imposes or aids insurgency is one image, and where the way that it interacts with counterinsurgency is the reflection. This model develops a symmetrical view of the required actions for both the Insurgent and COIN forces to achieve success. In this way the counterinsurgency model can demonstrate how both the insurgent and COIN forces succeed or fail. The model's strategies and principle apply to both forces, therefore the degree the forces follow the model should have a direct correlation to the success or failure of either the Insurgent or COIN force.  

Michael Mollohan
Mr. Mollohan is the lead for Regional Defense Fellowship Program Evaluation team at the Naval Postgraduate School Defense Analysis Department focused on Irregular Warfare curriculum development, evaluation, and operationalization.  Prior to his current position, Michael served as the regional security and policy advisor for the SOJ3-International, Special Operations Command Pacific. His area of responsibilities included the design, development, and execution of multinational Special Operations Forces (SOF) and related security sector education and cooperation. Michael is a retired Marine Corps Foreign Area Officer with more than 35 years of combined active duty and civilian service. He served as a military professor, senior service advisor for the Marine Corps, course director and co-lead on the counter-terrorism program for the Daniel K. Inouye, Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI-APCSS). While on active duty he had the privilege of serving in several countries globally as a military advisor and operations officer including assignments as a peacekeeper and the United Nations Operations Officer in the Republic of Georgia during the crisis of 2008-2009.  As a military professor and senior lecturer, Michael has conducted executive education programs for senior decision makers to operational leaders from numerous U.S. and Partner Nation security practitioner and academic organizations across the interagency, public and private sector. His areas of research and lecturing interest include Irregular Warfare and Security Education, Southeast Asia, Russia and the Former Soviet Union, Combatting Terrorism, Resiliency and Crises, Resistance and Global Power Competition. A current doctoral student completing his dissertation in Education and Leadership, he also holds master’s degrees in National Security (Naval Postgraduate School, 2002) and Business (Troy State, 1998) and is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (Political Science & Russian Studies).   

Steve Mullins
I appreciate the function that NPS performs for the Navy, its unique position, and its charter to develop leaders and deliver solutions. I subscribe to Pres. Rondeau’s recent Intent statement in which she characterizes NPS as synchronizing four key factors: “graduate education and applied research, with student operational experience and faculty expertise…” (NPS, 2021).  Thesis advising cross-cuts all four of those factors and is “…the main contribution of the researcher to the student colleague” (NPS, 1987, p.9). However, while the onus should be on the faculty member to foster that relationship (NPS, 1987), I suggest that it will only flourish if the student engages actively. Exchanges of information and knowledge must consist of “smart push” and “smart pull” interactions – in both directions.  The thesis project is a (if not the) central part in the student’s education. It involves a creative process that must begin concurrently with one’s coursework. It is the student’s legacy to those who follow. It is important to strive to conduct applied research that will meaningfully benefit a particular service or the DoD by adding to the body of knowledge in a chosen topic. 

Siamak Tundra Naficy
Research Interests: Anthropology of Conflict; Culture, History, and Geopolitics of Iran; War & Society; Moral/Sacred Values; Media & War; Cognitive Science; Honor (Culture) vs Dignity (Culture) 

Wayne Porter
Dr. Porter is a Senior Lecturer in the Defense Analysis and Systems Engineering Departments of the Naval Postgraduate School, where he also serves as Co-Director of the CORE Lab and Director of the Littoral Operations Center. He holds a Ph.D in Information Sciences and two Masters of Science degrees – in Computer Science and Joint C4I Systems Technology - from the Naval Postgraduate School. Military duty included Japan, England, Italy, the Balkans, Bahrain (COMFIFTHFLT ACOS Intelligence and MOC Deputy of Operations in the Persian Gulf/East Africa), and three tours on the personal staff of ADM Mike Mullen, including Special Assistant for Strategy to both the Chief of Naval Operations (N00Z) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He subsequently served as Chair, Systemic Strategy and Complexity at Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and retired from the Navy in July 2014 after 28 years of active service. Dr. Porter was hired as a faculty member at NPS in 2015 and in 2017 he provided systems analysis for the SECNAV’s Strategic Readiness Review.  While working for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ADM Mullen, CAPT Porter co-authored, with Colonel Mark Mykleby, “A National Strategic Narrative.” Published by the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars a National Strategic Narrative was subsequently cited Pulitzer Award winning author Tom Friedman, CNN commentator Fareed Zakaria, former UK Secretary for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Miliband, former Foreign Minister of Israel Shlomo Ben Ami, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan among many others (www.nationalstrategicnarrative.org).  Dr. Porter was recently named a Lifetime Achiever by Marquis’ Who’s Who in America. His civilian and military awards include the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Vice Admiral Rufus B. Taylor Award for Professional Excellence in Naval Intelligence, the Defense Superior Service  Medal, four Legions of Merit, and the NATO Meritorious Service Medal. Dr Porter is a “Walton Fellow” at Arizona State University’s Global Institute of Sustainability. 

Edward Rockower
Dr. Edward Rockower’s economic, scaling, and commercialization analyses, and simulation of major engineering programs have been intimately involved with the interplay of technology, computation, military operations, and business. He was an invited Speaker NATO, Brussels and member of its Electronic Warfare Working Group. He was also an Invited Speaker at The Laser Institute, Tokyo and an Invited Scholar at Harvard University. His work is taught at the US Naval Academy, included in the book “Naval Operations Analysis” 3rd edition, and cited in numerous Laser books. During the Web 1.0 boom, he was Chief Intranet Architect at PayPal, Head of Distance Learning for University of Maryland Asian Division, and “Lead of Technical Operations” for Software.HP.com, one of Hewlett-Packard’s top e-commerce websites. Dr. Rockower has applied Operations Research, Computer Engineering, Mathematics, and Physics to the Laser Isotope Separation Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, on the Faculty of the Operations Research Dept. at the Naval Postgraduate School, as Sr. Operations Research Analyst on the F-16 Program at General Dynamics, and as Systems Engineer, Sr. Staff in the Advanced Technology Center, Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company. He was cited, in writing, by the Chief Scientist of a major Lockheed Martin Space Systems Program as having: "solved a critical problem that 10 engineers had been trying to solve, unsuccessfully, for months prior to Ed's involvement". He is presently Local Technical Lead of the Global ECCO project, which supports the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program of The Office of The Secretary of Defense. Global ECCO is designed to foster collaboration among international Combating Terrorism Professionals

Robert Schroeder
Mr. Rob Schroeder is a Faculty Associate for Research in the CORE Lab within the Defense Analysis Department and a PhD Student in the Information Sciences Department at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). He is currently researching how to use open source information gathered largely from social media in order to understand and map the changing dynamics in conflict areas and exploring the use of network analysis to analyze maritime traffic patterns. He has presented some of this research at conferences (INFORMS and INSNA). 

Kalev "Gunner" Sepp
Dr. Sepp is presently a Senior Lecturer in the Defense Analysis Department at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. From 2019 to 2020, he was Chair of the department.  Dr. Sepp served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Counterterrorism, from 2007 to 2009. He was a member of the White House Counterterrorism Strategy Group, and was responsible for the Department of Defense global counterterrorism portfolio. This included policy oversight of all special operations world-wide, and formulation of the Department’s global counterterrorism strategy.  A former U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer, he earned his Ph.D. at Harvard University, and his Combat Infantryman Badge in the Salvadoran Civil War. Dr. Sepp also graduated from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College with a Master’s degree in Military Art and Science. His unit assignments included the 82d Airborne Division, the 2d Ranger Battalion, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment in Germany, and the 2d Infantry Division in Korea, among others. He was an assistant professor of history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and a resident scholar at Harvard University.  He served as an analyst and strategist in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as an expert member of the Baker-Hamilton Bipartisan Commission on Iraq, a.k.a. the Iraq Study Group.  While assigned in Iraq, Dr. Sepp wrote “Best Practices in Counterinsurgency,” later published in Military Review (May-June 2005), and reprinted in Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese. He is co-author of Weapon of Choice: U.S. Army Special Operations in Afghanistan, with R. Kiper, J. Schroder, and C. Briscoe (2003). He also authored chapters for Assessing War: The Challenge of Measuring Success and Failure (2015), Leadership: The Warrior’s Art (2001), War in Iraq: Planning and Execution (2007), Fuehrungsdenken in europaeischen und nordamerikanischen Steitkraeften im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (2001), A Global History of Relocation in Counterinsurgency Warfare (2020), and the NATO report, Counterinsurgency: The Challenge for NATO Strategy and Operations (2010), along with other articles, essays, reviews and studies.  Dr. Sepp was named one of “The Ten Most Influential Counterinsurgency Thinkers” in the United States by Foreign Policy magazine (2009). He has appeared on PBS Newshour, CNN, CNNi, BBC, MSNBC, CBS, National Public Radio and other national news programs. His sons – a Marine and an Army paratrooper, both captains – both served in Iraq. 

Elizabeth "Libby" Skinner
Elizabeth Skinner became the editor of the Combating Terrorism Exchange (CTX), a quarterly peer-reviewed journal on international counterterrorism and irregular warfare, in April 2012. Ms. Skinner first joined NPS in 1996 as a research assistant in the National Security Affairs department, where she edited and managed the publication of several multi-author books on nuclear nonproliferation and security studies. She has a BA in Russian Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an MA in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where she was also a fellow in the Center for Nonproliferation Studies.  

Bradley "BJ" Strawser
Dr. Bradley Strawser, himself a US Air Force veteran, received his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Connecticut and has lectured on the ethics of war and peace, military ethics, bioethics, and development ethics throughout the United States and Europe. He has published in such peer-reviewed journals as Analysis, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Philosophia, Journal of Military Ethics, Public Affairs Quarterly, Journal of Human Rights, and Epoché. Dr. Strawser has published books with Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, and Routledge. He has also written widely in popular media such as the New York Times, the Guardian, 3 Quarks Daily, among other places, and has appeared on various NPR affiliates, the BBC World Service, and other media outlets. In addition, Dr. Strawser is the Founder and CEO of Compass Ethics, an organizational ethics consultancy where he regularly advises senior leadership of Fortune 500 Companies on issues of ethical risk, improving ethical culture, and successful ethical outcomes.

John Tullius
Mr. John Tullius retired from the CIA in 2019 after serving three years as the Agency’s faculty Representative to NPS from 2016, when he intelligence-related classes on Covert Action, HUMINT, CPWMD and International Terrorism.  Prior to his retirement, John held a variety of positions, including managing China S&T analysis, working overseas as the Iranian nuclear expert, managing a group of big data analysts, and then managing OSE’s bureaus in Europe and the Middle East during the Arab Spring, emergence of foreign fighters, and ISIS. John is also a Senior Vice President for Grist Mill Exchange, a company that provides unique commercially available datasets to government agencies. He is also a senior advisor to Orbis Operations, where he has helped a friendly foreign government develop a large OSINT and analytic department.

Tristan Volpe
I am an assistant professor in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School and a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  I study issues at the intersection of nuclear proliferation, emerging technology, and regional security. My most recent publication, "Dual-Use Distinguishability: How 3D-Printing Shapes the Security Dilemma for Nuclear Programs," explores the effect of technological change on future proliferation dynamics. This article appears in the Journal of Strategic Studies as part of a special issue about the impact of emerging technologies on strategic stability.  My work has appeared in peer-review journals such as Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and the Nonproliferation Review. I also write for general policy audiences in journals such as Foreign Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  I run the Counter-Proliferation Studies program and teach courses on coercive strategy and proliferation for NPS students in the Defense Analysis Department.  I live and work in Monterey County, California. In the past, I was a fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and then the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 

Camber Warren
Prior to arriving in Monterey, I served as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the International Conflict Research (ICR) group and the Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS) at ETH Zurich, and at Princeton’s Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, after graduating with a Ph.D. in Political Science from Duke University, with concentrations in International Relations and Quantitative Methods. My research focuses on the study of international security, conflict processes, ethnic politics, statistical methods, and computational modeling. I am particularly interested in building new linkages between micro- and macro-level evidence in the study of armed conflict, both within and between states. My first book project, The Breakdown of Peace, examines the political economy of symbolic national attachments and the emergence of domestic mass violence. The central argument is that the political pursuit of violent fragmentation is less likely to succeed in countries with strong mass media structures, because such structures generate opportunities for political entrepreneurs to successfully deploy inclusive mobilizational appeals on a national scale. This framework thus endogenizes the emergence of intra-state security dilemmas, by describing the structural conditions under which divided group loyalties are more likely to emerge. It also overturns much of the conventional wisdom concerning the relationship between media and collective violence by demonstrating that mass communication networks, which have frequently been blamed for stoking inter-group animosities, can actually serve as powerful forces for domestic peace and stability. Concurrently, I am also developing independent and collaborative projects on alliance formation, nationalism, war severity, and the emergence of the modern state system.

Lieutenant General (Retired) Eric Wendt
Retired LTG Eric Wendt served over thirty-four years of active-duty commissioned service, including four and a half years in the light infantry, followed by 30 years as a Special Forces Green Beret.  During his time on active duty he served as the Principal Military Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary Leon Panetta; as the sole Deputy Commanding General (for both Operations and Support) for the 13,500 multinational troops from 17 countries in Regional Command-North in Afghanistan; as a Sub-Unified Theater Special Operations Commander (TSOC Commander), as the Commanding General of the JFK Special Warfare Center and School; as the Chief of Staff for the United States INDOPACOM; he also led an eight-country coalition as the three-star United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority;  and served in multiple other assignments.  LTG (Ret.) Wendt commanded multiple separate organizations for 13 years at tactical, operational and strategic levels while participating in numerous peacetime training and combat operations throughout the globe.  LTG (Ret.) Wendt received his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and received his master’s degree in 1995 from the Naval Postgraduate School (he was in the third class of what is today the Defense Analysis program). Ten years later, he successfully completed a yearlong academic fellowship in the Naval Postgraduate School’s Department of Defense Analysis. In 2018 he was recognized as a Distinguished Alumnus of the Naval Postgraduate School.  LTG (Ret.) Wendt has published multiple articles, and today teaches Command and Leadership as a Professor of Practice at the Naval Postgraduate School in the Department of Defense Analysis.  LTG (Ret.) Wendt brings significant guest speakers into his Command and Leadership courses who are strategic leaders from military, business, interagency, international and other fields, and he serves as the moderator when these guest speakers provide their “Fireside Chats” to the entire assembled Naval Postgraduate School student body. LTG (Ret.) Wendt speaks Arabic and Korean, and retired from active uniformed military service in 2021 as the Commander of the NATO Special Operations Headquarters.  In addition to working today as a Professor of Practice at Naval Postgraduate School, LTG (Ret.) Wendt also currently serves as one of two DOD Senior Mentors in Korea. 

Matthew Zefferman
In my research I use mathematical models and ethnographic field research to understand human culture, cooperation, and conflict – especially in the contexts of political organization and war. I also have conducted ethnographic fieldwork with Turkana pastoralist warriors in northwest Kenya. They also have a high degree of combat exposure – with about half of adult male mortality due to combat in cattle raids. I am interested in how Turkana organization for war has influenced their susceptibility to combat stress and moral injury. I have interviewed hundreds of warriors about their combat experiences, moral beliefs about warfare, combat stress symptoms, and moral injury.  Before starting as an assistant professor at NPS I was a Donald R. Beall Defense Fellow in my department. Before that I was a postdoctoral research fellow at ASU’s Institute of Human Origins and a member of the Adaptation, Behavior, Culture and Society research group in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change. Before that, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis and, before that, earned by PhD at the University of California, Davis in the Cultural Evolution and Human Behavioral Ecology Labs.  I am also a US Air Force veteran with six years of service as a civil engineering officer with deployments to the UAE and Afghanistan.