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Our Team

Our multidisciplinary team is made of technology and national security experts from across the academic, industry, military, and policy worlds. Our Senior Fellows, Fellows, and student Junior Fellows work together to produce valuable insights and solutions while training the next generation of tech policy leaders.

Leadership

Sarah Kreps

Dr. Sarah Kreps, DIRECTOR & FOUNDER – Sarah Kreps focuses on the intersection of international politics, technology, and national security. She is the John L. Wetherill Professor in the Department of Government, Adjunct Professor of Law, and the Director of the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. She has written five books, including, Social Media and International Relations. Other books include Taxing Wars: The American Way of War Finance and the Decline of DemocracyDrones: What Everyone Needs to KnowDrone Warfare; and Coalitions of Convenience: United States Military Interventions after the Cold War.


Headshot of Dr. Rogers

Dr. James Patton Rogers, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR – James Patton Rogers is an expert on drone warfare, disruptive and emerging technologies, and the history of weaponry and war. He is currently the NATO Country Director of the Full Spectrum Drone Warfare project supported by NATO SPS and he provides overall strategic and operational leadership of the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute.  An experienced policy adviser, James has addressed the United Nations Security Council and currently works with the UNOCT, UNCTC, and the UK Parliament as an expert adviser. Patton Rogers prioritizes policy impact and public dissemination from his academic research. He regularly writes for the Washington Post and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and he hosts the Warfare podcast with over 550,000 monthly listens in 180+ countries.

 

Senior Fellows

Headshot of Dr. Doug KrinerDr. Doug Kriner, SENIOR FELLOW – Douglas Kriner is The Clinton Rossiter Professor in American Institutions in the Department of Government at Cornell University.  His research and teaching interests focus on American political institutions and the separation of powers, as well as on US foreign policy and science and health policy. He is the author of five books, including most recently The Myth of the Imperial Presidency: How Public Opinion Checks the Unilateral Executive (University of Chicago Press 2020; with Dino Christenson). Other books include Investigating the President: Congressional Checks on Presidential Power (Princeton University Press 2016; with Eric Schickler) and The Particularistic President: Executive Branch Politics and Political Inequality (Cambridge University Press 2015; with Andrew Reeves).


Headshot of Dr. Gustavo Flores-Macías

Dr. Gustavo Flores-Macías, SENIOR FELLOW – Gustavo Flores-Macías’ research and teaching focus on two main areas of political and economic development: 1) the politics of economic reforms, especially taxation, and 2) crime and policing, with an emphasis on the militarization of public safety. His most recent book, Contemporary State Building: Elite Taxation and Public Safety in Latin America, studies how institutionally weak governments can get the wealthy to shoulder a greater tax burden.  In addition to serving as Cornell’s Associate Vice Provost for International Affairs, he is the editor of The Political Economy of Taxation in Latin America and the author of After Neoliberalism? The Left and Economic Reforms in Latin America, which won the Latin American Studies Association Tomassini Award in 2014.


Headshot of Dr. Goldfarb

Dr. Jillian Goldfarb, SENIOR FELLOW – Prof. Jillian Goldfarb received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University in 2004 and Ph.D. from Brown University in 2008, and is now an Associate Professor in Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University. Her research tackles issues surrounding energy generation and its impact on the environment. On campus, Prof. Goldfarb is a Fellow at the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, the Cornell Institute of Politics and Global Affairs, the Cornell Dairy Center of Excellence, and an Expert in the Cornell Energy Systems Institute. Prof. Goldfarb is an Associate Principal Editor for the journal Fuel, leading the Fall 2022 American Chemical Society Fall National Meeting Theme “Sustainability in a Changing World” and is a member of the ACS Committee on Environmental Improvement.


Headshot of Dr. Rebecca Slayton

Dr. Rebecca Slayton, SENIOR FELLOW – Dr. Slayton’s research and teaching examine the relationships between and among risk, governance, and expertise, with a focus on international security and cooperation since World War II. Slayton’s current book project, Shadowing Cybersecurity, examines the historical emergence of cybersecurity expertise. Shadowing Cybersecurity shows how efforts to establish credible expertise in corporate, governmental, and non-governmental contexts have produced varying and sometimes conflicting expert practices. Nonetheless, all cybersecurity experts wrestle with the irreducible uncertainties that characterize intelligent adversaries, and the fundamental inability to prove that systems are secure. The book shows how cybersecurity experts have paradoxically gained credibility by making threats and vulnerabilities visible, while acknowledging that more always lurk in the shadows.


Headshot of Dr. Ricky Clark

Dr. Ricky Clark, SENIOR FELLOW – Ricky Clark is an Assistant Professor of Government at Cornell University. He received his PhD (with distinction) in Political Science from Columbia University in May 2021 and was previously a postdoctoral fellow in the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. He is a faculty affiliate of the Roper Center for Public Opinion at Cornell University, Cornell Center for the Social Sciences, and Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. His current research focuses on international organizations, public opinion, and environmental politics. Ricky is particularly interested in policymaking at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, including their nascent efforts to combat climate change.


Headshot of Dr. Keith Carter, LTC, U.S. Army

Dr. Keith Carter, LTC, U.S. Army, NON-RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW – LTC Keith Carter is the Director of the Defense and Strategic Studies program at the United States Military Academy. He earned a PhD in Political Science and Government from the University of Pennsylvania in 2019.


Dr. Gregory Falco – SENIOR FELLOW, Dr. Gregory Falco is an Assistant Professor at the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and the Systems Engineering Program at Cornell University. He received his PhD from MIT, where NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory funded his doctoral research in Cybersecurity at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). He is the director of the Aerospace ADVERSARY Laboratory, which designs and develops next-generation autonomous, secure and resilient space infrastructure. As a hacker, he exploits physics and modern computing systems to achieve missions previously thought to be infeasible. His space technology research is policy-relevant and advances standards and national security conversations relating to space supremacy and cybersecurity. He was listed in Forbes 30 Under 30 for Enterprise Technology, named a DARPA RISER, and received the DARPA Young Faculty Award for his disruptive security and space technology research.


Headshot of Dr. David Silbey

Dr. David Silbey, SENIOR FELLOW – David Silbey is the Director of Teaching and Learning at the Cornell in Washington program in the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University.  Dr. Silbey specializes in the industrialized total wars of the 20th century and the asymmetric responses — guerrilla warfare, insurgency, and terrorism — to those wars. He has written books on the British Army in World War I, the Philippine-American War, the Boxer Rebellion in China, and US military encounters with non-western nations.  He is the series editor for Cornell University Press’ military history series “Battlegrounds:  Cornell Studies in Military History.”  Dr. Silbey got his Ph.D at Duke University and his BA at Cornell University.


Headshot of Dr. Paul Lushenko, LTC, U.S. Army

Dr. Paul Lushenko, LTC, U.S. Army, NON-RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW – LTC Paul Lushenko is the Director of Special Operations and a Faculty Instructor in the U.S. Army War College’s Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations. He earned his Ph.D. and M.A. in International Relations from Cornell University. He also holds an M.A. in Defense and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College, an M.A. in International Relations and a Master of Diplomacy from The Australian National University, and a B.S. from the U.S. Military Academy. He is the co-editor of Drones and Global Order: Implications of Remote Warfare for International Society (2022), which is the first book to systematically study the implications of drone warfare on global politics. He also has a book forthcoming on the public’s perceptions of legitimate drone strikes, entitled The Legitimacy of Drone Warfare: Evaluating Public Perceptions.


Headshot of Judith Germano

Judith Germano, SENIOR FELLOWJudith Germano is a practicing attorney, corporate director, and former federal prosecutor specializing in cybersecurity and technology risk management and strategy, regulatory risk, and compliance. Judi is a Distinguished Fellow at NYU’s Center for Cybersecurity; Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU School of Law; and Adjunct Professor and Faculty Advisory Board Member of the Volatility and Risk Institute at NYU Stern School of Business. She is the founder and lead counsel of GermanoLaw LLC, advising public and privately held organizations and their leaders regarding cybersecurity and privacy; high-stakes mediation and negotiations; complex fraud and other investigations and litigation; regulatory-compliance matters; and crisis management. Judi is an independent director at DIME Community Bancshares, Inc. (Nasdaq: DCOM), serving on the Enterprise Risk, Strategic Planning, and Credit Risk Committees. Judi founded and chairs Women Leaders in Cybersecurity, and is an Expert Industry Advisor of Truepic Inc.


Headshot of Dr. Qian Yang

Dr. Qian Yang, SENIOR FELLOW – Dr. Qian Yang is a human-AI interaction designer and Cornell’s assistant professor in information science. Her research focuses on understanding how to bring human-centered thinking to bear on frontier AI techniques more effectively. Her recent work focuses on leveraging large language models (LLMs) for education and mental healthcare, and in doing so, promoting the new practice of “designing AI technologies and policies simultaneously.”


Headshot of Dr. Christopher Earls

Dr. Christopher Earls, SENIOR FELLOW – Chris Earls is Director of the ONR-funded SciAI Center, and his research group pioneers partnerships between human and machine intelligences; pushing the frontiers of scientific discovery forward using mathematics as a common language. Mathematics is the language of the natural laws that, with great precision, describe our universe. The associated governing equations are then the syntax for our predictive theories. By creating novel AI architectures, that reason in terms of sophisticated mathematics,  Earls believes that it is possible to facilitate both the machine’s ability to learn about the world, and also its ability to communicate back to us what it has discovered; while at the same time opening the door to theoretical understanding of how and why the machine is able to learn what it does from data that are too complex for human interpretation.


Dr. J. Wesley Hutto – NON-RESIDENT SENIOR FELLOW, Dr J. Wesley Hutto is an Associate Professor within the US Air Force’s School of Advanced Air and Space Studies (SAASS). Dr. Hutto’s research interests include drone warfare and its intersection with International Relations and International Relations theory, regional powers and comparative regional security, military strategy, and multinational military exercises. His work has appeared in the Journal of Regional Security, International Politics, Defence Studies, RUSI Journal, and The Army War College Quarterly Journal: Parameters.

Fellows

Maxwell NortemanMaxwell Norteman – BTPI DIRECTOR’S FELLOW, Maxwell Norteman has worked in the Diplomatic, National Security, and Intelligence Community working as a War Crimes Analyst for the US Department of State and as a Labor Crimes intern at the US Consulate in Johannesburg. He currently conducts research on a joint project between Cornell University and the US Department of State Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Maxwell is in his second year studying National Security and Human Rights at the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. He attended Trinity College, studying Comparative Politics and Genocide Studies, focusing on counterterrorism, peacekeeping, and atrocity prevention. He is a Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellow and an incoming Foreign Service Officer.

Headshot of Brett ReichertBrett Reichert – FELLOW, Brett Reichert is a U.S. Army Goodpaster Fellow and PhD student in Public Policy at Cornell University. His research examines how emerging military technology affects conflict dynamics and the use of force. He is interested in the ways legal regimes respond to and shape technological development in armed conflict and the national security context. He is particularly interested in the rise of automation and autonomy in military systems. He holds a Master’s of Policy Management from Georgetown University. Prior to joining Cornell, Brett was a Bradley Fellow assigned to the 19th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the 40th Army Chief of Staff.


Headshot of Dr. Lilly Muller

Dr. Lilly Muller – FELLOW, Lilly Pijnenburg Muller is a Fellow at the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute. Her work focuses on the intersection between politics, security, and technology. Muller is also a Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Science & Technology Studies and in the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict at Cornell University. Previously she worked as a Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and as a James Martin Fellow in the Global Cyber Security Capacity Building Centre (GCSCC) at the University of Oxford. Lilly holds a PhD from the War Studies Department at King’s College London.


Headshot of Dr. Jean-François Bélanger

Dr. Jean-François Bélanger – NON-RESIDENT FELLOW, Jean-François Bélanger is an expert on nuclear politics, disruptive and emerging technologies, and coercive diplomacy & conflict escalation. He’s currently leading Wargaming as Experiments: Strategy and Unintended Consequences (WESUE) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 fund as part of his Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship. The project uses geopolitical simulations to understand better the causes of nuclear escalation and restraint. Jean-François is interested in the ways in which geopolitical simulations can be used to generate data in rare events, develop better heuristics for crisis decision-making, and to inform military exercises. He is a Non-Resident Fellow of the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute at Cornell University and was previously a fellow at Yale’s International Security Studies and at the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo.


Headshot of Amelia C. Arsenault

Amelia Arsenault – FELLOW, Amelia C. Arsenault is a PhD candidate at Cornell University’s Department of Government, in the IR subfield. Her research explores the implications of emerging technology on international relations, with a particular focus on AI, surveillance, and ‘smart city’ technologies. She contributed a chapter in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of AI Governance, and her work has been published in the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, the Harvard Business Review, and the Journal of Peace Research (forthcoming). Her doctoral research has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Department of National Defence Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) Scholarship Initiative.


Headshot of Avishai Melamed

Avishai Melamed – FELLOW, Avishai Melamed is a PhD Student at Cornell University’s Department of Government in the International Relations subfield. His research focuses on the politics of technology, science diplomacy, and patterns of international cooperation and competition. He has published in Acta Astronautica and the Journal of Space Safety Engineering, and written for the Center for Space Policy and Strategy and Brookings TechStream. Avishai holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science – International Relations and History from University of California, San Diego.


Headshot of Adi Rao

Adi Rao – INDUSTRY FELLOW, Adi Rao is a PhD candidate at Cornell University’s Department of Government and associate at the RAND Corporation. He is currently an Industry Fellow at Cornell University’s Tech Policy Institute. He researches national security and technology issues, including space politics, cyber defense, and the political economy of semiconductor chip supply chains. He earned his BA in Economics from NYU in 2015 and an MA in Politics from Columbia University in 2018.


Headshot of Dr. Jon McCandless

Dr. Jon McCandless – FELLOW, Dr. Jon McCandless is an Ignite Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University, where he is working to commercialize his research on semiconductors. Prior to Cornell, Jon worked at the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) focusing on device fabrication and testing of gallium nitride and gallium oxide devices. He was a member of the ACCESS Center – a joint center between AFRL and Cornell devoted to gallium oxide. He earned his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Cornell and received the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP) and was an Irwin Jacobs Family Fellow.


Headshot of Dr. Julie George

Dr. Julie George – FELLOW, Dr. Julie George received her PhD in the Government department at Cornell University, specializing in international security in August 2023. Broadly, her research examines the proliferation of emerging technologies and their impact on the probability and nature of conflict and cooperation in the international system. Currently, she is an International Security Program Postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Previously, she was a predoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute (HAI) at Stanford University (2022-2023). Prior to her PhD studies at Cornell University, she worked at the Atlantic Council and completed a graduate fellowship at the Nonproliferation Education and Research Center (NEREC) housed at KAIST University in South Korea. She has a B.A. and M.A. in Political Science from Boston University, where she received the Best Thesis Award and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.


Basim Ali- FELLOW, Basim has been a public servant for the Government of India with expertise in technological and fintech policy analyses, risk advisory and strategy consulting. He is currently pursuing his MPA from the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and is a Fellow at the Cornell Brooks School Tech Policy Institute. In India, at the federal level, he was instrumental in formulating and executing policies that dealt with cryptocurrency regulations, Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering Financing of Terrorism (CFT) along with regulating Peer-to-Peer (P2P) lending platforms. At Deloitte, he was a part of a global team that dealt with financial crime investigations, anti-corruption due diligence and business intelligence. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking and reading poetry.

Junior Fellows

Headshot of Lucas GaliogluLucas Galioğlu – JUNIOR FELLOW, Lucas Galioğlu is an Information Science student in the College of Arts & Sciences at Cornell University. He is also pursuing minors in Computer Science and Business. Lucas is a writer for the Cornell Economics Society and a Brother of Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity. He is passionate about building responsible applications and policies for generative Artificial Intelligence that lead to positive societal impact.


Headshot of Abby Srulevich

Abby Srulevich – JUNIOR FELLOW, Abby Srulevich is a Tanner Dean’s Scholar at Cornell University studying Government in the College of Arts & Sciences. On campus, she is a fellow of Pi Lambda Sigma’s pre-professional government society. Her research interests lie in media studies—with a focus on online extremism and radicalization studies.


Eeshaan Chaudhuri – JUNIOR FELLOW, Eeshaan Chaudhuri is a Public Policy student in the Brooks School, pursuing minors in International Relations, Data Science and Philosophy. On campus, he enjoys walking backwards while giving tours to prospective students, writing for the Cornell Policy Review, and advocating for his fellow Brooks students within the Student Assembly. His research focus primarily lies within advancing global security systems and wargaming.


Headshot of Ella Hough

Ella Hough – JUNIOR FELLOW, Ella Hough is a Junior in Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences. She is pursuing a Bitcoin-focused study through Cornell’s Robert S. Harrison College Scholar Degree Program. In addition to being a “College Scholar” major, Ella is majoring in Cognitive Science with minors in Information Science (concentrated in Networks, Crowds, & Markets) and Business. Through her work with the Cornell Bitcoin Club, Generation Bitcoin (501(c)(3)), the Bitcoin Students Network, and many other efforts, including as an author and speaker, she is dedicated to helping young generations learn about and contribute to Bitcoin.


Headshot of Cynthia Tan

Cynthia Tan – JUNIOR FELLOW, Cynthia Tan is a Public Policy major with a minor in Information Science, with a concentration in Information Ethics, Law, and Policy at the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. On campus, she actively engages as a Resident Advisor, member of Phi Alpha Delta Pre-Law Fraternity, Cornell International Affairs Society, Women Leaders of Color, and a Laidlaw Scholar. Her academic pursuits are complemented by substantial professional experiences, including her role as a Global Data Consultant for the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the United Nations Development Programme. Additionally, she has contributed as a researcher at the Kaschak Institute for Social Justice, where her work concentrated on climate policies. Cynthia’s involvement in global forums is highlighted by her participation as a delegate at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP28) and collaborations with UN Women and the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Leveraging her comprehensive background in technology, economics, and sustainability, Cynthia’s current research as a Laidlaw Scholar focuses on the international legal and policy implications of economic cybercrime.


Esteban Lau – JUNIOR FELLOW, Esteban Lau is a Senior in the College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Government and pursuing a minor in International Relations. On campus, he is vice president of Esports at Cornell, a student-run club that facilitates competitive gaming, and a trumpet player for the Big Red Marching Band. His main research interests lie in the evolution of warfare, arms procurement, national security, and foreign policy.


Kayla Schechter – JUNIOR FELLOW, Kayla Schechter is a sophomore Public Policy student in the Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University. On campus, she is a speaker curator for the TEDx conference team, a voting ambassador for Cornell Votes, a member of Cornell Intellectual Property and Ethics Club and Jewish Muslim Student Alliance. Inspired by the combined experiences of studying abroad in Jerusalem and interning for the French Consulate as well as local government, Kayla is interested in exploring the intersection between international relations, technology policy and cybersecurity.

Anika Kolanu – JUNIOR FELLOW, Anika Kolanu is an Information Science student in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. On campus, she is a Staff Writer for The Cornell Sun and a photographer for Cornell Athletics. Her research interests lie in the ethics of new technological advancements, foreign policy, and human-centered design.