The Institute for Future Conflict is pleased to welcome its inaugural class of non-resident fellows for the 2024-25 academic year. During the fellowship, these scholars will spend September through May researching aspects of the future battlespace including emerging technologies, applied history, strategic competition, and potential adversaries. Their fellowship will conclude with a trip to Washington, DC to present their findings to senior leaders at the Pentagon.
On September 25, the IFC hosted the fellows at the U.S. Air Force Academy for an initial conference to connect with their cohort, tour USAFA facilities, and introduce their research topic.
Meet the 2025 cohort.
Michael Brill is a Global Fellow in the History and Public Policy Program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University. His research focuses on modern Iraqi history, particularly during the Baʿthist period of 1968-2003. For the fellowship, Brill’s project focuses the continued relevance of digitized Iraqi records in the Pentagon's Harmony Database for applied history with respect to prior conflicts and more recent geopolitical events.
Emma Campbell-Mohn is a program analyst for C3BM and an Air Force Research Lab’s Command, Control, Communications, and Battle Management Team member. She was named the 2023 “Rising Leader” with the Aspen Security Forum and the 2016-2017 Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University. Her project examines the role of US allies and partners in strategic competition, specifically emphasizing economic collaboration in achieving military and security objectives in the Indo-Pacific.
Elliot Ji is a Ph.D. candidate studying international politics at Princeton University's Department of Politics. His research interests include military technological innovation, Chinese foreign and security policy, and authoritarian politics. Ji’s fellowship project focuses on the Chinese approach to developing advanced military technologies.
Jennifer Spindel, Ph.D is an assistant professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. Her research focuses on international security, foreign policy, alliances, and civil-military relations, and she is interested in how political actors signal their intentions and beliefs. Spindel’s current book project argues that states use arms transfers to send signals about their political alignment, even when the weapon does not affect the balance of power.
Keith Carter, Ph.D is an Associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College. Keith is a retired Army officer, whose military career spanned over two decades and included multiple command assignments, service in special operations, and eight combat tours. His research agenda encompasses strategic competition, the impact of societal and technological trends on military organizations and security operations, and civil-military relations concerning U.S. institutions, force design, and force employment.
Spindel and Carter are co-leading a project focused on the defense industrial base and future conflict.
Elena Wicker, Ph.D. recently concluded her time as a Future Concept Developer at Army Futures Command and will begin work as a national security analyst at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Her dissertation explored the strategic creation and use of jargon in the U.S. military and the past, present, and future of concepts, doctrine, and strategy. Wicker’s project studies the Air Force’s future concept development process to better understand underappreciated constraints on the service’s ability to pursue novel force design, emerging technologies, and ideas.
