Navin Bapat is the Dowd Professor of Peace and War and the Chair of the Curriculum of Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. He received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan in 1998 and pursued graduate studies at Rice University, where he received an M.A. (2000) and a PhD (2004) in political science. Professor Bapat research interests include examining conflicts involving violent non-state actors, such as insurgencies and terrorist campaigns, using formal and empirical methods. Professor Bapat also is involved an ongoing project examining the use and the effectiveness of economic sanctions. His published work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, the British Journal of Political Science, Public Choice, and Conflict Management and Peace Science. Professor Bapat recently published a book entitled Monsters to Destroy: Understanding the War on Terror with Oxford University Press. He is currently working on projects related to terrorism and energy security, the enforcement of economic sanctions, and racial terrorism.

Kyle Beardsley is Professor in the Department of Political Science at Duke University, Deputy Director of the Triangle Institute of Security Studies, and co-director of the International Crisis Behavior data project.

His research focuses on the quantitative study of international conflict and peace processes. He is particularly interested in questions related to the role of third parties in shaping conflict dynamics, the links between armed conflict and gender power imbalances, the diffusion of armed conflict across space, and the impact of nuclear weapons on international crisis behavior.

William Boettcher is associate professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University.

Dirk Bonker is an Associate Professor of History at Duke University. He is a historian of Germany and the United States, who focuses on questions of militarism, warfare, and empire in the long twentieth century.

Susan Colbourn is Associate Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy.

She is a diplomatic and international historian, interested in questions of alliance politics, strategy, and security in the atomic age. She is the author of Euromissiles: The Nuclear Weapons That Nearly Destroyed NATO (Cornell University Press, 2022), which explores the rise and fall of the intermediate-range nuclear arms race in Europe.

Manna Duah is an Assistant Professor of History at North Carolina Central University. Her research interests are global Africa, with a focus on democracy, state violence, foreign relations, and Black transnational mobilizations in the twentieth century. She also studies histories of development theory and capitalism in postwar Africa; race and U.S. foreign policy toward Africa; and the making of the post-1945 global order. Her research highlights state histories and the social and political histories of globalization.

Peter D. Feaver is a Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at Duke University.  He is Director of the Duke Program in American Grand Strategy. Feaver is author of Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Harvard Press, 2003) and of Guarding the Guardians: Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons in the United States (Cornell University Press, 1992). He is co-author: with Christopher Gelpi and Jason Reifler, of Paying the Human Costs of War (Princeton Press, 2009); with Susan Wasiolek and Anne Crossman, of Getting the Best Out of College (Ten Speed Press, 2008, 2nd edition 2012); and with Christopher Gelpi, of Choosing Your Battles: American Civil-Military Relations and the Use of Force (Princeton Press, 2004). He is co-editor, with Richard H. Kohn, of Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security (MIT Press, 2001).  He has published numerous other monographs, scholarly articles, book chapters, and policy pieces on grand strategy, American foreign policy, public opinion, nuclear proliferation, civil-military relations, and cybersecurity.

Stephen E. Gent is Professor in the Department of Political Science and Adjunct Professor in the Curriculum of Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His research largely focuses on the role of third parties in conflict and conflict resolution, including the causes and consequences of military intervention, international mediation, and legal dispute resolution. His book, Market Power Politics: War, Institutions, and Strategic Delay in World Politics (Oxford University Press, 2021), explores how economic competition drives territorial conflict between countries.

Noor Ghazi is a Professor in Practice at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, department of Peace, War and Defense and a Cofounder of Archive Iraq. She holds a MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is also the Arabic lecturer at the department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Noor has recently joined Mosul University in Iraq as a Visiting Lecturer. As part of the peace building effort and in collaboration with Iraqi Al Amal Association, UNDP and UNESCO, Noor translated “Preparing for Peace ” into Arabic, for the eminent peace scholar John Paul Lederach.

Karen Hagemann is the James G. Kenan Distinguished Professor of History and Adjunct Professor of the Curriculum in Peace, War and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has published widely in Modern German and European history, the history of military and war, and women’s and gender history. Her most recent monographs is Revisiting Prussia’s Wars Against Napoleon: History, Culture and Memory (Cambridge University Press, 2015), won the Hans Rosenberg Prize for the best book in Central European history in 2016 by the Central European History Society.

Her last edited volume is The Oxford Handbook of Gender, War and the Western World since 1600 (Oxford University Press, 2000). She is also the director of the related Digital Humanities Project “GWonline, the Bibliography, Filmography and Webography on Gender and War since 1600” (http://gwc.unc.edu/welcome). Currently she is working on a monograph titled Forgotten Soldiers: Women, the Military and War in Modern European History, 1600-2000.

Moses Khisa is an Assistant Professor of Political Science in the School of Public & International Affairs (with a joint appointment in Africana Studies) at North Carolina State University. He is a graduate of Makerere University, Kampala (BA & MA), and Northwestern University (MA & PhD in political science). His research and teaching interests include the political economy of development, politics of institutional change, civil-military relations, among others.

He is a columnist for the Daily Monitor newspaper, a research associate with the Centre for Basic Research, co-founder of a think-tank Society for Justice and National Unity, all based in Kampala. He is also a member of the Dakar based pan-African Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA). He has published in Africa Development, Third World Quarterly, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, Civil Wars, Review of African Political Economy, Journal of Eastern African Studies, among other peer-reviewed journals. He is currently completing two book manuscripts, one on Rethinking Civil-Military Relations in Africa (co-edited) and another on Africa’s New International Relations (co-authored).

Miguel La Serna is professor of Latin American History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research and teaching focus on the revolutionary left in the Americas, exploring the intersections between race, class, and gender in a context of political violence. His previous works include The Corner of the Living: Ayacucho on the Eve of the Shining Path Insurgency (UNC Press, 2012); With Masses and Arms: Peru’s Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (UNC Press, 2020); and the co-authored (with Orin Starn) The Shining Path: Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes (Norton, 2019). His current project examines the symbolic appropriations of the 18^th-century Andean rebel, Túpac Amaru, by the revolutionary left across the Americas.

Klaus Larres is the Richard M Krasno Distinguished Professor of History & International Affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His research focuses on three main areas: (1) current political, economic and security relations among the U.S.-China-Europe & western policy toward China; (2) transatlantic relations & U.S., British, German foreign policy & EU politics, and (3) the Global Cold War & the life and politics of Winston Churchill in war and peace.

Bahar Leventoglu is a formal theorist with substantive interests in international relations and political economy. Currently, she has four different ongoing lines of research. One line of research focuses on how leaders use public statements to affect their bargaining position in international negotiations. A second line of research deals with rational explanations of war. A third line of research concerns habit formation in bargaining situations as well as use of strategic tools, e.g. sanctions, in bargaining. A fourth line of research concerns regime transitions: One project focuses on the effect of social mobility on regime transitions, where as another one examines how coalition formation among groups that are ethnically as well as economically divided have an impact on democratization.

Jessica C. Liao is Assistant Professor of Political Science at North Carolina State University and Wilson China Fellow 2020–21. She works on China’s foreign economic policy, China-Southeast Asia relations, and the rise of China and its regional and global impact and implications to human security. Her academic research has appeared in journals including The Pacific Review, Journal of Contemporary China, and Global Governance.

John Mattingly is a Professor of Nuclear Engineering and University Faculty Scholar with NC State University (NCSU). His research principally focuses on developing new radiation measurement and analysis methods for nuclear security applications, including nonproliferation, counterterrorism, emergency response, and forensics. John is the director of NCSU’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Science and Policy graduate certificate program, which is jointly administered by the Nuclear Engineering and Political Science departments. He currently serves as the chair of the American Nuclear Society’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Division.

Simon Miles is assistant professor in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University, where he teaches courses on international relations and strategy.

He is the author of Engaging the Evil Empire: Washington, Moscow, and the Beginning of the End of the Cold War, published in 2020 by Cornell University Press. Simon’s current project, On Guard for Peace and Socialism, is an international history of the Warsaw Pact.

Michael Morgan is associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His research and teaching focus on modern international and global history, especially the Cold War and the history of human rights. His book, The Final Act: The Helsinki Accords and the Transformation of the Cold War (Princeton University Press, 2018), received the Edgar S. Furniss Award for best first book in national and international security.

Eric Mvukiyehe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Duke University. His academic and policy research cuts across many topics and contexts, including on: (i) reducing poverty and promoting socioeconomic welfare and psychological wellbeing for the poor and at-risk youth; (ii) political economy of conflict, peacebuilding and development in fragile and war-torn countries; (iii) strengthening state capacity in fragile states through reforming the civil service and traditional institutions; and (iv) promoting women’s empowerment through socioeconomic inclusion and political participation. He has also been conducting (v) COVID-19 research, leveraging previous or ongoing research to in investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected businesses as well as households’ welfare and well-being in efforts to help inform policies and strategies to mitigate the pandemic’s deleterious effects.

Rachel Myrick is an assistant professor of political science at Duke University.

Her research explores how partisan polarization affects foreign policymaking in democratic states, with an emphasis on contemporary U.S. national security policy. Her work has been published at The Journal of Politics, International Organization, and International Studies Quarterly, among others.

Timothy Nichols served as an intelligence officer in the Marine Corps for over 21 years with extensive experience in the special operations, intelligence, and counterterrorism fields. His overseas experience spanned deployments to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, East Africa, Central America, and the Pacific. He was designated a Regional Affairs Officer for East Africa. While in Iraq, he directed a joint interagency task force attempting to track and target foreign extremists traveling to Iraq for violent activities. Prior to his retirement from the military, Tim taught courses in Leadership, Ethics, and Management at Duke, UNC, and NC State for four years. In addition to his consulting activities, Tim is currently a research fellow and visiting professor of the practice in the School of Public Policy at Duke University. He is the executive director of the Counterterrorism and Public Policy Fellowship Program and the Faculty Representative for the Master of National Security Policy Program. His research interests and teaching responsibilities include policy analysis, intelligence, interagency coordination, national security, homeland security and counterterrorism policy.

Mary-Rose Papandrea is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law.  Professor Papandrea is a First Amendment and media law scholar with expertise in government secrecy and national security leaks, among other topics.

Mara Revkin is an Associate Professor of Law at Duke University. Her research and teaching focus on armed conflict, peace-building, transitional justice, migration, policing, and property using empirical mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) with a regional focus on the Middle East. Her work is informed by field research and professional experience with humanitarian and human rights organizations in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Oman. She holds a J.D. from Yale Law School and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University, where her dissertation examined the Islamic State’s governance of civilians in Iraq and Syria.

Mehdi Shadmehr is an Associate Professor of Public Policy. Prior to joining UNC, he was an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Calgary (2016-20), and an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Miami Business School  (2011-16). Mehdi was a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy(2018-20), a member of the Institute for Advanced Studyin Princeton (2017-18), and a Visiting Associate Research Scholar at Princeton University Department of Politics in 2015.

Mehdi’s research interests are interdisciplinary, and his papers have appeared or in various journals across political science and economics, including American Economic Review: Insights, American Political Science Review, Journal of the European Economic Association, and Journal of Politics. His papers span across various aspects of conflict, including regime change, political risk, leadership (inspirational, informational, and tactical), evolution of social norms, protests and revolutions, repression and censorship, and revolutionary ideologies.

Michael J. Struett is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs at North Carolina State University. His research interests include global governance, international organizations, human rights, and the politics of international law. From 2015-2019 Dr. Struett served as member of the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture and contributed to the Commission’s final report, Torture Flights: North Carolina’s Role in the CIA Torture and Rendition Program (2018) – www.NCCIT.org. He also has particular expertise on the International Criminal Court and the politics of war crimes trials. He is the author of The Politics of Constructing the International Criminal Court: NGOs, Discourse, and Agency (2008) and other articles on the subject.

Dr. Struett is co-editor of a book titled Maritime Piracy and the Construction of Global Governance (2013) in The New International Relations Series by Routledge Press, which explains how international law and international organizations shape the responses of states and other actors to maritime piracy.

Patricia L. Sullivan is Associate Professor in the Department of Public Policy and the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Director of the Triangle Institute for Security Studies.

Dr. Sullivan’s research explores the utility of military force as a policy instrument; the effects of foreign military aid and assistance provided to both state and nonstate actors; and factors that affect leaders’ decisions to initiate, escalate, or terminate foreign military operations. Her research has been funded by the Carnegie Corporation, the National Science Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the Office of Naval Research. Her book, Who Wins? Predicting Strategic Success and Failure in Armed Conflict, was published by Oxford University Press in 2012.

Shai Tamari is the Director of the Conflict Management Initiative and the Associate Director of the Center for Middle East & Islamic Studies at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill. In addition, he is a Professor of the Practice under the Department of Public Policy and the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense at UNC, and an Adjunct Instructor at Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, where he teaches both undergraduate- and graduate-level skills-based courses in Conflict Management. At UNC, Shai is also the Director of the minor in Conflict Management.

Erika Weinthal is a Professor of Environmental Policy and Public Policy and a member of the Bass Society of Fellows at Duke University.  She specializes in global environmental politics and environmental security with an emphasis on water and energy. Current areas of research include (1) global environmental politics, (2) environmental conflict and peacebuilding, (3) the political economy of the resource curse, and (4) climate change adaptation.

Erinn Whitaker, a former senior analyst for the US Intelligence Community, is a Professor of the Practice in the Curriculum of Peace, War and Defense (PWAD) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

With nearly 15 years of experience overseas and in Washington, she draws on active teaching methods to underscore themes such as the dynamic between senior policymakers and intelligence officers, how the intelligence community has evolved, and the importance of analytic tradecraft. Whitaker teaches courses such as “Writing and Briefing for Intelligence,” “Cases in Counterintelligence,” and “The Origins and Consequences of September 11th” to help students interested in careers ranging from intelligence to public policy to journalism strengthen their critical thinking, written and oral communication skills.