Michael Aaron Dennis is Professor of Strategy and Policy at the Naval War College and a Research Associate with the Program on Science, Technology and Society. His current work focuses on the integration of science and technology into US grand strategy. During his time at Harvard, he will also be contributing to the National Science Foundation project, “Traveling Imaginaries: A Comparative Study of Three Models of Innovation in Their Transnational Implementation.” 

He received his doctorate in the history of science and technology from the Johns Hopkins University in 1991. After postdoctoral fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum, as well as the Science Studies Program at the University of California, San Diego, he served as an Assistant Professor in Cornell University’s Department of Science and Technology Studies as well as a member of the Peace Studies Program. After his time at Cornell, he worked as an adjunct at several universities in the metropolitan Washington, DC area, including Georgetown University’s Security Studies and Science, Technology and International Affairs Programs; he also taught courses on technology and national security in George Mason University’s BioDefense Program. His research and writing focus on the intersection of science, technology and the military with a special emphasis on World War II and the Cold War. He is currently completing a book manuscript on this topic, entitled, A change of state: Technical Practice, Political Culture and the Making of Early Cold America. His 2013 article, “Tacit knowledge as a factor in the proliferation of WMD: The example of nuclear weapons,” won a prize from the Editorial Board of Studies in Intelligence, the journal in which it appeared.