Speakers

Daniel Byman

Director, Center for Security Studies

Daniel Byman is a Professor in the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University with concurrent appointments with the Department of Government and as the Director of the Security Studies Program. He is also the Director of the Warfare, Irregular Threats, and Terrorism Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He is the foreign policy editor for Lawfare and a part-time senior adviser to the Department of State on the International Security Advisory Board.

From 2002 to 2004, Dr. Byman served as a Professional Staff Member with the 9/11 Commission and with the Joint 9/11 Inquiry Staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. Before joining the Inquiry Staff, he was the Research Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation. Before this, Dr. Byman worked as an analyst on the Middle East for the U.S. government.

Dr. Byman has written extensively on a range of topics related to terrorism, international security, civil and ethnic conflict, and the Middle East. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy, as well as journals including World Politics, Political Science Quarterly, and International Security. He is the author of several books, and his latest book is entitled Spreading Hate: The Global Rise of White Supremacist Terrorism (Oxford, 2022).

Dr. Byman is holds a B.A. degree from Amherst College and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Carlotta Poensgen

M.A. Candidate in Security Studies, Georgetown University

Carlotta Poensgen is a final year graduate student in Georgetown’s Security Studies Program, concentrating in Intelligence. She was a member of the Special Competitive Studies Project’s Foreign Policy team and has previously worked as a geopolitical-risk consultant in Berlin. Her research focuses on the intersection of emerging technologies, national security, and risk. At Georgetown she has also served as a teaching assistant for undergraduate International Security and International Law courses. She holds a B.A. in Politics and International Relations from the University of Cambridge.

Glenn S. Gerstell

Senior Adviser (Non-resident), International Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Glenn S. Gerstell is a lawyer, technology/national security writer, and former government official. Currently, he is a Senior Adviser (Non-resident) in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He served as the General Counsel of the National Security Agency (NSA) from 2015 to 2020, during the Obama and Trump administrations. He has been a frequent guest commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR about the intersections of technology and national security. He has also written on these topics extensively, with articles appearing in various publications, including The New York Times, The New Yorker, Barron's and The Washington Post.

Prior to joining the NSA, Mr. Gerstell practiced law for almost 40 years at the international law firm Milbank, LLP, where he focused on the global telecommunications industry. Mr. Gerstell has also served on the President's National Infrastructure Advisory Council and the District of Columbia Homeland Security Commission. Earlier in his career, he was an adjunct law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center and New York Law School.

Mr. Gerstell is a recipient of the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service, and the NSA Distinguished Civilian Service Medal. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Diplomacy and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mr. Gerstell holds a B.A. degree in political science and government from New York University and a J.D. degree from Columbia Law School.

Suzanne Spaulding

Director, Defending Democratic Institutions; Senior Adviser, Homeland Security, Defense and Security Department, Center for Strategic and International Studies

Suzanne Spaulding is a Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where she leads the Defending Democratic Institutions project. Previously, she served as Undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In this role, she led the National Protection and Programs Directorate, now called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), managing a $3 billion budget and a workforce of 18,000 that was charged with strengthening cybersecurity and protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election infrastructure.

Prior to joining the DHS, Ms. Spaulding was the General Counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Minority Staff Director for the US House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She also spent six years at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), where she was Legal Adviser to the Director’s Nonproliferation Center.

Ms. Spaulding was a member of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission; is former Chair of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security; and founder of the ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force. She serves on several corporate and non-profit boards, has convened and participated in numerous academic and professional advisory panels, been a frequent commentator in public media, and often testified before Congress.

Ms. Spaulding holds a B.A. degree in Economics from the University of Virginia and a J.D. degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

William Marcellino

Senior Behavioral and Social Scientist, RAND; Professor of Text Analytics, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Bill Marcellino is a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, professor of policy analysis at the Pardee RAND Graduate School, and lecturer at Carnegie Mellon University. He was trained as a sociolinguist and corpus linguist, and at RAND he develops AI applications, including RAND-Lex, RAND's proprietary text analytics suite. Marcellino teaches text analytics and natural language processing (NLP), as well as qualitative research methods. Marcellino directs the development of AI research tools at RAND. His research focuses on information as a warfighting function, AI technology application and acquisition for DoD, military resilience, and information operations over social media. He has also served as a U.S. Marine tank officer and enlisted rifleman. Marcellino received his Ph.D. in rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon University.

Olga Belogolova

Director, Emerging Technologies Initiative, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies

Olga is the Director of the Emerging Technologies Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She also professor at the Alperovitch Institute at SAIS, where she teaches on trust and safety and disinformation and influence in the digital age.

At Facebook/Meta, she led policy for countering influence operations, leading execution and development of policies on coordinated inauthentic behavior, state media capture, and hack-and-leaks within the Trust and Safety team. Prior to that, she led threat intelligence work on Russia and Eastern Europe at Facebook, identifying, tracking, and disrupting coordinated IO campaigns, and in particular, the Internet Research Agency investigations between 2017-2019.

Olga previously worked as a journalist and her work has appeared in The Atlantic, National Journal, Inside Defense, and The Globe and Mail, among others. She is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project, serves on the review board for CYBERWARCON, the Trust and Safety Advisory Group of the Institute for Security and Technology, and is on the board of directors for the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas (DDIA).

Mariam Halstian

M.A. Candidate in Security Studies, Georgetown University

Mariam Halstian is a Master’s student with the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. At Georgetown, Mariam is a columnist at the Georgetown Security Studies Review and a fellow at the Georgetown AI Association. Her research focuses on disinformation and influence operations, technology policy, and Eastern Europe. Mariam was formerly a program officer at IREX’s Learn to Discern, a nationwide project on building Ukrainian society’s resilience to disinformation. She also worked at National Democratic Institute and the NATO Representation to Ukraine.

Nini Hamrick

President, Vannevar Labs

Nini Hamrick is the cofounder and President of Vannevar Labs—a defense technology startup that builds products designed for US and allied defense partners competing in non-kinetic domains with nation state aggressors in increasingly contested areas around the world. Nini leads Vannevar’s mission teams that launch and grow its technology deployments with the national security community. Vannevar’s products are deployed on over 20 US military bases, and the company has raised $91M in venture capital and achieved profitability since its launch in 2019. Prior to co-founding Vannevar, Nini served as a US intelligence officer with counterterrorism mission groups, including embedding with the US military overseas. She holds a BA from Harvard College and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Milancy Harris

Former Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, U.S. Department of Defense

Milancy Harris is a strategic leader with extensive experience bridging government and industry to develop innovative solutions for complex policy and security challenges. Most recently, she served as the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, serving as the Department of Defense’s principal intelligence, counterintelligence, security, and law enforcement advisor. In that role, she oversaw the five defense agencies that comprise the Defense Intelligence and Security Enterprise and the Military Intelligence Program, which includes several critical national security investments.

Ms. Harris began her career as an all-source analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency before serving in senior roles at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Security Council, and Department of Defense focused on intelligence analysis, counterterrorism operations, and national security policy. Ms. Harris also played a pivotal role in technology governance, operationalizing Meta’s Oversight Board, serving as its first Chief of Staff, and shaping governance structures for complex global content moderation challenges.

She holds an M.A. in International Affairs from The George Washington University and dual B.A. degrees from Marquette University.

Vivek Chilukuri

Senior Fellow and Director, Technology and National Security Program, Center for a New American Security

Vivek Chilukuri is the Senior Fellow and Program Director of the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). His areas of focus include accelerating U.S. leadership in Artificial Intelligence (AI), quantum, and biotechnology, the U.S.-China technology competition in key emerging markets, securing critical digital infrastructure, and the U.S. Congress and technology policy.

Before joining CNAS, Mr. Chilukuri served as a Senior Staff Member for Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He served as Bennet’s Senior Policy Advisor for technology, Deputy Chief of Staff, Legislative Director, and Chief Speechwriter. In these positions, Mr. Chilukuri worked on legislation to strengthen America’s technology competitiveness and promote responsible governance for digital platforms and emerging technologies like AI.

Previously, Mr. Chilukuri served at the Department of State as a policy advisor to the Undersecretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, and as a Program Officer on the Middle East and North Africa team at the National Democratic Institute. He has published articles in Foreign Policy, TIME, Lawfare, and Nikkei Asia. His commentary has been featured in various media outlets, including the The New York Times, Politico, and CNN International.

Mr. Chilukuri holds a B.A. degree in International Studies from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he was a Robertson Scholar. He also holds a M.P.P degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Bishop Garrison

Vice President for Policy, Intelligence and National Security Alliance

Bishop Garrison is a senior national security executive, veteran, and writer who has served in the military, presidential administrations and campaigns, the nonprofit community, and the private sector throughout his 20-year career. Currently, he serves as the Vice President for Policy with the Intelligence and National Security Alliance, INSA. In this capacity, Bishop serves as the lead representative to industry, government, and academia in representing the policy interests and legislative priorities of INSA and over 170 organizations within its membership. Prior to this role, Bishop served as the Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy at Paravision.AI. In that position, Bishop represented Paravision before government entities, regulators and trade associations to help shape thoughtful and ethical policy around the deployment of computer vision artificial intelligence products. He also served in the Biden Administration in the Senior Executive Service and served as a Senior Advisor to the Secretary of Defense. In this role, Bishop was a leading counselor to the Secretary and Deputy Secretary on workforce-related issues including co-leading the development of the first-of-its-kind HBCU consortium University Affiliated Research Center (UARC); leading the department’s efforts on extremist activity; serving as a liaison on sexual assault response and prevention; supporting diversity and inclusion policy development and other priority areas. He is also the former Interim Executive Director of the Truman National Security Project and Truman Center for National Policy.

Bishop attended the United States Military Academy at West Point graduating in 2002. He served two tours in Iraq with the U.S. Army. Following his service, Bishop graduated from the William and Mary School of Law in Williamsburg, VA. 

Bishop is the recipient of two Bronze Stars, a Meritorious Service Medal, and a Combat Action Badge. His civilian accolades and awards include multiple medals from the Office of the Secretary of Defense as well as several citations from the Department of Homeland Security and the Executive Office of the President. He is also a recipient of the Taylor Reveley “Citizen Lawyer” Award from the College of William and Mary Law School.

Currently, Bishop resides in Northern Virginia with his family. He enjoys reading, creative writing, working out, and playing and watching sports. He is also an Active Member of the Science Fiction Writers Association.

Welton Chang

Co-founder and CEO, Pyrra Technologies Inc.

Dr. Welton Chang is co-founder and CEO of Pyrra Technologies, an AI-powered social media intelligence company. Most recently he was the first Chief Technology Officer at Human Rights First and founded HRF's Innovation Lab. Prior to joining HRF, Welton was a senior researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory where he led teams and developed technical solutions to address disinformation and online propaganda. Before joining APL, Welton served for nearly a decade as an intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency and in the Army, including two operational tours in Iraq and a tour in South Korea. Welton received a Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, an M.A. from Georgetown University, and a B.A. from Dartmouth College.