Mike Nelson

Contact

Email: nelsonmd@upenn.edu

Biography

Mike Nelson is the Chief of Staff/ Director of Communications at Penn Washington, the University of Pennsylvania’s office in Washington, D.C. He is also a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project.

Michael Nelson most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer at the Global Energy Security Institute and, prior to that, as Director of Operations at the Institute for the Study of War.

Prior to joining ISW, Mike served as an Army Special Forces officer, retiring after 23 years. He served at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels, including as the Deputy Director of the US Central Commander’s Action Group, Future Operations director of Combined Joint Interagency Task Force-Syria, Director of the Baghdad Targeting Cell, and as a special forces company and Operational Detachment Alpha commander in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He deployed eleven times to Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Qatar, and Kosovo with the 82nd Airborne Division, the 5th Special Forces Group, Joint Special Operations Command, and Special Operations Command-Central.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Virginia Military Institute, a Master of Business Administration from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, and Masters of Science from both the Naval Postgraduate School and Columbia University.

His writing has been published in The Atlantic, The Dispatch, War on the Rocks, Newlines Magazine, and other defense and security-related publications.