Jason Rimmelin is a major in the United States Air Force. He is currently a fellow at the China Aerospace Studies Institute in Washington, DC. He has previously served in a variety of assignments in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. His most recent assignment was a fellowship at Amazon Web Services on the Aerospace and Satellite team.

Dan Mahanty is the Director of Research, Learning, and Innovation at Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), an international organization committed to the protection of civilians in armed conflict. He also served as CIVIC’s US Director from 2017-2021. Prior to CIVIC, Dan served at the US Department of State from 1999-2016, where he developed and led the Office of Security and Human Rights. He has a masters degree from Georgetown University and a BA in economics from George Mason University. He is married with two children, and lives in the Hague, Netherlands.

Jan Osburg is a senior engineer at the RAND Corporation. His work focuses on aerospace, defense, and homeland security. Recent projects involved assessing next-generation launch vehicles, space rescue, cislunar grand strategy, planetary defense, researching sUAS and counter-UAS technologies, developing resistance-based defense strategies for the Baltic states, and mitigating the North Korean nuclear threat. He has spent significant time as an embedded advisor in Iraq and Afghanistan—six months with MNF-I in Baghdad in 2009, three months with CFSOCC-A in Kabul in 2010, and two months with the Asymmetric Warfare Group in Bagram in 2013.

Kevin L. Schwartz is Deputy Director of the Oriental Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, as well as a research fellow focused on the history, culture, and politics of Iran and co-director of the 9/11 Legacies Project. His writings on Iran, U.S. foreign policy, and the Middle East have appeared in a wide-range of international academic journals and media outlets. He holds a PhD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

David is an active-duty U.S. Army Strategist with previous experience in Air and Missile Defense and Aviation. He was previously selected as an Art of War Scholar at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) and is currently participating in the Army People Seminar for Academic Year 2023-24. David holds a bachelor’s degree in History from Kent State University, and master’s degrees in Organizational Leadership from Brandman University, History from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and Military Arts and Science from CGSC.

Thomas J. Shattuck is the Global Order Program Manager at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House. Shattuck is a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute, member of Foreign Policy for America’s NextGen Foreign Policy Initiative, and the Pacific Forum’s Young Leaders Program, where he participated in the 2022 US-Philippines Next-Generation Leaders in Security Initiative. His research focuses on cross-Strait relations, Taiwanese and Chinese domestic and foreign affairs, Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, and the US role in the Indo-Pacific. In 2022, he was one of 39 civilians selected to participate in the Department of Defense’s Joint Civilian Orientation Conference.

Patrick Hutson is from Towson, Maryland. He attended the University of Maryland, College Park in 2016 and majored in Government and Politics with minors in History and Global Terrorism Studies from Maryland’s START program. Graduating in 2019, he began employment at the Department of Justice where he currently works. He is currently a graduate student at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service earning a degree in Security Studies. His areas of interest include intelligence history, existential risk, and forecasting and foresight, and his hobbies include reading comics, writing poetry, and playing roleplaying games.

Lance Menthe is a Senior Physical Scientist at the RAND Corporation where he works on artificial intelligence and new tools and processes for military intelligence. He has a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of California, Los Angeles, concerning twisting conformations of DNA. In his spare time, he writes contemporary and speculative fiction.