Audrey Kurth Cronin, CMIST Director; Trustees Professor of Security and Technology

Prof. Cronin’s research focuses on how conflicts end and how lethal technology diffuses. From both research and field studies experience, she is an expert on the range of tools used to end conflicts--including negotiating, targeting leadership, undermining public support, reorienting the violence, and using military repression. She also explores how nonactors use accessible technologies such as robotics, cyber weapons, synthetic biology, autonomous systems, and various forms of artificial intelligence. She is also an expert in military technological innovation, especially the differences between 20th century innovation and processes of innovation and diffusion driven by commercial actors today. Her areas of expertise include:

• Security, Military, Terrorism 

• International Affairs

• Government Relations and Policy

Mark Kamlet, University Professor of Economics and Public Policy; Chair of the Graduate Committee; Provost Emeritus

• How to reduce the social costs and increase the benefits of technological innovation

• Polarization among U.S. political parties, media and elites

• Cost-effectiveness and resource allocation in healthcare

Kathleen M. Carley, Professor of Computer Science, Institute for Software Research; IEEE Fellow; CASOS Director 

Dr. Carley specializes in network science, social cyber-security, and organizations. Her work is transdisciplinary, and employs a diverse range of methods including social and dynamic network analysis, visual analytics, machine learning, computational linguistics, agent based modeling, and generative AI. Computational social science applications include organizational design, influence, online harms (disinformation, hate-speech and extremism), and disasters. Social cybersecurity focus areas include:

• Ensuring that people can work and play online without undue influence and fear

• Emphasis in detecting, countering and mitigating the impact of online harmful behaviors

• New technologies that employ network science and AI to detect inauthentic information

Ignacio Arana, Assistant Professor

Prof. Arana specializes in elite behavior by analyzing how the personality traits and other individual differences of heads of government impact executive governance. Second, he studies the consequences of variation in political institutions across countries, with an emphasis on Latin America. He also examines executive-legislative relations, informal institutions, gender and politics, and judicial politics. His research interests include:

• Heads of Government

• Political Psychology

• Comparative Political Institutions

• Latin America

Jonathan Cervas, Assistant Teaching Professor (Fall '24)

Prof. Cervas’ research interests focus on American political institutions and political representation, with particular emphasis on how inequalities in institutions result in disparities among voters. His current areas of interest include:

• Voting rights, vote dilution, and inequalities in voting

• Elections, especially election integrity, election law, and election reform

• Minority representation in electoral systems

• Gerrymandering and redistricting

John Chin, Assistant Teaching Professor

Prof. Chin's research interests are the intersection of international relations and comparative politics, with an emphasis on technologies of rebellion, authoritarian politics, and comparative democratization. His current areas of study include:

• Coups d'état, self-coups, mass uprisings, and assassinations

• Forecasting political instability

• U.S. foreign policy / democracy promotion

Molly Dunigan, Senior Lecturer

Prof. Dunigan's research focuses on the future of warfare, grand strategy, great power conflict dynamics, military privatization, outsourcing, operational contract support, civil–military relations, counterinsurgency, and maritime security. Her current areas of interest include:

• Private security contracting

• Civilian deployment

• Strategic competition

Geoffrey McGovern, Senior Lecturer

• Asbestos litigation

• Civil law

• State judicial resourcing and management

Forrest Morgan, Senior Lecturer

Prof. Morgan’s areas of research focus on air and space power doctrine and strategy and the future of warfare. Specific topics include:

• Deterrence

• Escalation management

• Crisis stability

• Artificial intelligence

Daniel Silverman, Assistant Professor

• Lies and misinformation in war

• What shapes public support for violent resistance groups

• Drivers of aggressive foreign policy attitudes

• How rebel leaders shape modern war and peace making

Haleigh Bartos, Associate Professor of the Practice

Prof. Bartos has substantial experience working in Washington, DC to support policy and at various NGOs.  Her current research interests span national security and terrorism, with a particular focus on terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa.

Covid Crisis Group, Lessons from the COVID War: An Investigative Report.  New York, NY: Public Affairs, 2023. 

(CMIST Prof. Baruch Fischhoff, contributing author)

Chin, John J.,  Joseph Wright, and David B. Carter. Historical Dictionary of Modern Coups D’état. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022.

Cronin, Audrey Kurth. Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow's Terrorists. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2020. 

Grisé, Jane Bloom, and Michelle C. Grisé. Civil Rights and Federal Courts: Juidice v. Vail. Northport, NY: Twelve Table Press, 2020.

Dunigan, Molly. Victory for Hire: Private Security Companies' Impact on Military Effectiveness. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011.

Fischhoff, Baruch, and John Kadvany. Risk: A Very Short Introduction. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011.

Cronin, Audrey Kurth. How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.