Areas of Expertise
- International
- National Security
- Public Management
- US National Security Policy and International Relations
- Science, Technology and Public Policy
- Management Strategies
- International Relations and Public Policy
Biography
Michael Nacht has had a diverse career in academia, government and the private sector specializing in US national security policy and international affairs; science, technology and public policy; and management strategies for complex organizations. He is the Thomas and Alison Schneider Professor of Public Policy. From 1998-2008 he was Aaron Wildavsky Dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy.
His previous academic appointments were at the University of Maryland at College Park, where he was Dean and Professor in the School of Public Policy; and at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where he was Associate Professor of Public Policy, Associate Director of the Center for Science and International Affairs, Acting Director of the Harvard Program on US-Japan Relations, and founding co-editor of International Security, a quarterly journal.
In government, Nacht was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs from 2009-10 after unanimous US Senate confirmation for which he received the Distinguished Public Service Award, the highest civilian honor. He was previously Assistant Director for Strategic and Eurasian Affairs in the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency from 1994-97. He began his career as a NASA missile aerodynamicist during the manned space program. Nacht participated in five US Presidential Summit meetings with the Russian and Chinese presidents.
Nacht's current research is on modifications to strategic deterrence; assessing latent strategic capabilities; aspects of US cyber and space policy; and strategies in East Asia and the Middle East. He is the author or co-author of five books and more than eighty journal articles and book chapters. His opinion articles have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Financial Times.
He received a B.S. in Aeronautics and Astronautics and an M.S. in Operations Research from New York University, and a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Columbia University.