Curriculum Vitae

WORK EXPERIENCE
EDUCATION
PUBLICATIONS

career profile

I am a polymath, a strategic thinker, an academic, and a theorist focused on national security and intelligence studies. My career has spanned the full tactical to strategic spectrum, and my research has spanned the full quantitative to qualitative spectrum. I have a unique capacity to quickly build expertise and make connections between several areas of study, working independently and in teams to develop innovative ideas and solutions.

career objectives

My career objective is to identify and pursue opportunities to maximize my strengths in research, writing, theory development, and education, allowing me to realize my full potential.

I am content in my current pursuits within the Department of Defense and am not actively looking for work at this time.

However, I am open to considering new opportunities inside and outside government to take on more academic or research-focused challenges.

I am especially looking for opportunities to teach at the undergraduate and graduate levels, especially in subjects related to intelligence studies and national security studies.

Work Experience

  • Pentagon (Arlington, VA)

    • Co-Lead and executive briefer for “Reimagining Defense Warning,” a cross-functional initiative to improve how the DoD performs the warning mission, and reimagining it as more than just an intelligence function.

    • Lead author for analytic guidance and doctrine development on warning and the use of the indicators structured analytic technique.

  • Bethesda, MD

  • Pentagon (Arlington, VA)

    • Defense Warning Staff Senior Intelligence Analyst (GG-14 Billet) from 2018 until 2020. Responsible for all analytic products produced by a team of 10 analysts, providing assistance with concept development, adherence to standards, application of structured analysis techniques, and developing overall program of analysis and production for team.

    • Mission Manager for Policy, Tradecraft and Training from 2020 until 2021. Rewrote agency-level policies on defense warning for J2-level approval. Led all internal analyst development training for warning within office. Provided mentorship to junior and mid-level analysts on DoD warning network and analytic approaches.

  • Washington, DC

    • Devil’s Advocate supporting alternative and exploratory analysis by advising, facilitating, and mentoring analysts covering all regional and functional national security topics.

    • Helped design and deliver multiple professional education courses to include Analysis of Alternatives and Senior Intelligence Analyst Course.

    • Explored applicability of advanced analytic techniques (both qualitative and quantitative) to make recommendations, inform training, and establish standards for application across the Defense Intelligence Enterprise.

  • Washington, DC

    • Course manager and lead instructor for Community Collaboration Course. Instructor for Warning Analysis Course and Military Capabilities Analysis Course.

    • Completely revised Community Collaboration Course content to integrate more rigorous academic and business community research.

    • Created and executed pilot program to explore use of commercially available education options to enhance DoD analytic training. Led to increased acceptance and use of platforms such as Coursera in DoD analytic training. Led to recognition as Academy for Defense Intelligence Employee of the Year for 2016.

  • Washington, DC

    • One-year Joint Duty Assignment (GG-15 Billet). Managed DHS intelligence analysis and tradecraft evaluation program. Analysis of results briefed to executive leadership, driving policy changes for training and analytic production.

    • Designed and presented several seminar sessions on structured analytic methods to global DHS analyst cadre; boosted training availability to all state, local, tribal, and territorial analysts.

  • Omaha, NE

    • Supervised team of 16 military and civilian personnel for Joint Force Component Command for Global Strike. Managed all division production processes and provided senior analytic review for content, tradecraft standards, and overall quality.

    • Spearheaded development of updated analytic methods for team, emphasizing systems analysis, network analysis, process mapping, and visualization; new approaches resulted in 40% reduction in time required to gain command approval for planning updates, significantly expediting overall planning process.

  • Washington, DC

    • Subject matter expert and analyst on tactical aviation military capabilities. Produced and briefed analytic products on adversary air threats to U.S. Interests and systems.

  • Mountain Home AFB, ID; Elmendorf AFB, AK

    • 7-Year veteran of the USAF, separating as a Captain (O3). Served as an intelligence officer in a variety of tactical units, leading small, elite teams of analysts to provide direct intelligence support to operational flying squadrons.

    • Graduate of the USAF Weapons school (2004); Served as Elmendorf AFB Weapons Intelligence Officer, charged with managing all intelligence training across the wing and serving as the tactical/technical expert on global adversaries and blue-force intelligence capabilities.

    • Deployed in support of Operations ENDURING FREEDOM, IRAQI FREEDOM, and SOUTHERN WATCH.

education AND PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

    • 4-course graduate certificate on strategic warning intelligence.

    • International relations degree program with a specialization in quantitative social science.

    • Thesis work created a quantitative and spatial model of escalation along with supporting to test hypotheses and identify optimal strategies.

    • Inducted into Alpha Sigma Nu honor society.

    • Elite, graduate level course in both friendly and adversary technical weapons systems, tactics, and capabilities.

    • Academic Award and Mission Support awards winner for intelligence class.

    • Final course paper selected as best of intelligence class and 2nd runner up for best paper from overall class of 80+ graduates.

    • Cum laude graduate with degree focus on Russian language and history.

    • US Air Force ROTC Scholarship. Commissioned as 2nd Lt.

    • Resident Advisor (1998-2000)

    • Military Operations Research Society Wargaming Certificate

    • United States Air Force Combat Survival School

    • United States Air Force Basic Intelligence Officer’s Course

publications

  • Available at Studies in Intelligence Website

    Summary: My review of the book “Contemporary Intelligence Warning Cases.” Overall, this is an excellent addition to the literature on intelligence and warning, bringing a wide variety of topics to the case study treatment and providing valuable lessons for both intelligence practitioners and decision makers.

  • Available on NIU Website

    Abstract: While warning has been written about for decades, surprisingly little consensus exists within the Intelligence Community (IC) about how to define and describe it. The use of terms such as strategic, operational, tactical, political, threat, and incident warning occurs across the scholarly and practitioner literature, often contradicting one another. Furthermore, within the field of intelligence studies, warning lacks an underlying theory of practice. Tis National Intelligence University (NIU) Research Monograph addresses the gap in this field by applying a data-driven research methodology to understand warning and then establish a foundational theory of warning through a two-step process. First, it employs grounded theory to explore the existing literature and practitioner perspectives on warning to identify seven foundational principles of warning. Second, it incorporates these principles to create an underlying theory of warning through the creation of a core lexicon, formal models of key concepts, and a framework of warning. As a central lexicon, three core definitions of warning emerge from the data: warning as a mission, warning as communication, and warning mindset. Meanwhile, the resulting framework establishes four functions of warning: exploratory warning, transition warning, dynamic warning, and explicit warning. Finally, this Monograph highlights those topics and issues requiring additional research and exploration, as well as implications from the proposed theory of warning on contemporary debates.

  • Available on NIU Website

    Abstract: This Research Short looks to reignite debate on how the IC defines warning and several terms associated with it in the context of intelligence. The term has been used inconsistently over time and across intelligence organizations, and past definitions have often presented limited views of the concept. To ground the discussion, this Short will note problems arising from how the IC has defined the term across history and then identify key themes that distinguish warning as a distinct intelligence discipline. It will then propose two definitions of warning for consideration by intelligence practitioners and scholars as part of an ongoing research effort.

  • Submission to the 2020 ODNI Galileo Awards Essay Contest

    Summary: Proposal for a new way of visualizing warning analysis by emphasizing numerical assessments of probability over time as informed by a traditional indicator methodology. Also proposed a capacity to quickly auto-generate basic warning reports to aid executive briefing staffs.

    Unavailable for public release at this time.

  • Submission to the 2019 ODNI Galileo Awards Essay Competition

    Summary: Initial framework of warning as a series of concentric circles of defense against threats, using the strategic, operational, and tactical underlying framework. Forms an early foundation of what would eventually be my NIU Research Fellowship monograph.

    Currently unavailable for public release.

  • FINALIST for the 2018 ODNI Galileo Awards Essay Competition

    Summary: Explores the background of Matrix Games as part of the broader field of wargaming and proposes how to set up and employ a matrix game capability within a mid- to national-level organization to inform analysis.

    Currently unavailable for public release.

  • WINNER of the 2016 ODNI Galileo Awards Essay Competition

    Summary: Explores the meanings of coordination, cooperation, and collaboration to establish a broader framework of intelligence integration that includes all three terms. Makes recommendations for improving collaboration between U.S. intelligence and government agencies.

    Unavailable for public release currently.

  • WINNER of the 2015 ODNI Galileo Awards Essay Competition

    Summary: Written at a time when Massive Open Online Courses were still relatively new, this essay presented the results of a pilot program I ran within the DoD to explore how to use commercially available options to provide more cost efficient training for government analysts.

  • Available at Creighton University online thesis database.

    Abstract: Escalation is a critical concept within the greater literature on crises, conflict, deterrence, and bargaining. It is characterized as either a phenomenon of conflict or as a strategic option available to actors within a conflict, but in all cases it represents a discrete, qualitative step. Thus the current literature lacks a formal, quantitative approach to escalation. Additionally, while the current body of knowledge on escalation focuses on why escalation may occur, the process by which it occurs is largely unexplored. Finally, the literature largely fails to explore the potential relationship between misperception in international politics and escalation. This paper remedies these omissions in the literature by developing a quantitative, spatial, process-based model of escalation which accounts for the possibility of misperception between actors. The model forms the basis for computer simulations of conflict between two adversaries which, in turn, facilitates the comparison of multiple escalation strategies in conflict. An analysis of this tournament of strategies searches for and identifies two Nash equilibria along with four primary classes of outcomes to simulated conflict. Final conclusions from this analysis indicate that actors are generally unable to generate a decisive advantage in war through strategic choice and reinforce the idea of war as a “costly lottery” already present within the literature.

  • Graduate paper presented at the 2013 International Studies Association (ISA) Midwest conference. Early concept development for my final graduate thesis (see “Formal Theory” above for full description of research).

    Available upon request.

  • Final paper submitted as part of the USAF Weapons School program. This paper looks at intelligence and information flows during a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) event, exploring how the most recently posted information is not always the most recent or accurate. The paper sets out recommendations on how to effectively coordinate CSAR notification and search phases, ensuring the safe returned of U.S. and allied downed aircrew.

    Unavailable for public release due to classification.