People of the PAWC

PAWC Leadership & Staff

W. Travis Morris, Ph.D.

Director, Peace and War Center
Professor of Criminal Justice
Norwich University

Travis Morris joined the faculty of Norwich University in 2011. He directs NU’s Peace and War Center. Morris holds a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology from Northern Illinois University, a Master of Science in criminal justice from Eastern Kentucky University, and a doctorate from the University of Nebraska. He has published on information warfare and the relationship between policing, peacekeeping, counterterrorism, and counter-insurgency, and is the author of the recent book, “Dark Ideas: How Violent Jihadi and Neo-Nazi Ideologues Have Shaped Modern Terrorism.” He has conducted ethnographic interviews in Yemen and published on how crime intersects with formal and informal justice systems in a socio-cultural context. His research interests include violent extremist propaganda analysis, information warfare, and text network analysis. He is an active teacher in and out of the classroom and has created a series of recent grant-funded student learning trips in the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Middle East.

Yangmo Ku, Ph.D.

Associate Director, Peace and War Center
Chair, Department of History and Political Science
Professor of Political Science
Norwich University

Yangmo Ku received his B.A. in German language and literature from Sogang University in Seoul and earned his M.A. in international affairs and Ph.D. in political science from George Washington University. He taught in the School of International Service at American University before moving to Norwich in July 2012. Since then, he has taught various courses, including Asian politics, U.S.-China relations, international organizations, international relations, comparative politics, and a senior seminar course — U.S., China, and Russia. He also works as associate director of the Peace & War Center at Norwich while serving as editor of the Journal of Peace and War Studies (JPWS).

Ku’s research focuses on North/South Korean politics, East Asian security, U.S. foreign policy, and the politics of memory and reconciliation in East Asia and Europe. His co-authored book, titled Politics in North and South Korea: Political Development, Economy, and Foreign Relations, was published by Routledge in 2018.   

Megan Liptak, M’09

Assistant Director, Peace and War Center
Norwich University

Megan Liptak joined Norwich University in 2010 and has planned, managed and executed events and provided various administrative services for over twelve years. She has served on several campus committees, most recently as a member of Staff Council. She previously served as the chair of the Staff Retreat planning committee, and co-chair of the International Symposium of Military Academies planning committee. She is currently a member of the Faculty/Staff Campaign Committee and an NU Wellness Ambassador. She holds a bachelor of arts in history with a minor in anthropology/archaeology from Millersville University in Pennsylvania and a master of arts in military history from Norwich University where her capstone project focused on the comparison of combat soldier experiences during World War II and the conflict in Vietnam.

PAWC Advisory Board

David Last, CD, M.A., MMAS, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Royal Military College of Canada

Lt. Col. David Last, Ph.D., served for 30 years in the Canadian army and is a graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada (BA, Politics and Economics), Carleton University (M.A., International Affairs), and the London School of Economics (Ph.D., International Political Economy). He attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Leavenworth, earning a Master of Military Arts and Science. His research interests focus on the management of violence, including peacekeeping, conflict resolution, and the use of force for international peace and security.

Darlene Olsen, Ph.D. 

Charles A. Dana Professor of Mathematics, VBRN Coordinator
Norwich University

Dr. Olsen is a Charles A. Dana Professor of Mathematics and Norwich coordinator for the Vermont Biomedical Research Network. Dr. Olsen's Ph.D. is in the field of mathematics called Ergodic Theory. Her current research areas are biostatistics and pedagogy in mathematics and statistics. Dr. Olsen has received external research grants from the National Institutes of Health's Vermont Biomedical Research Network and an S-STEM award from the National Science Foundation. She has served as a statistical consultant and published work in several research journals. She was also the 2013 Homer L. Dodge Award winner for Excellence in Teaching.

Kyle Pivetti, Ph.D. 

Professor, English
Norwich University

Kyle Pivetti specializes in Early Modern English Literature, with a particular interest in Shakespeare. His research examines nationalism, memory, and pacifism in the 16th and 17th centuries, but he also writes on adaptations of Shakespeare in popular culture, including comic books, fantasy novels, and science fiction. His teaching often takes up these genres, whether in stories of Afrofuturism, revenge films, or ghost stories.

His first book, "Of Memory and Literary Form: The Making of Nationhood in Early Modern England" (University of Delaware Press, 2015), examines how something as simple as a set of rhyming lines can give readers a sense of national identity. He is also the co-author, alongside John S. Garrison, of "Shakespeare at Peace" (Routledge, 2018). This study of Shakespeare’s pacifism bridges the field of Peace Studies with literary analysis and includes a look at Shakespeare’s place in the most pacifist of television shows, Star Trek: The Next Generation. These interests in the geekier sides of Shakespeare studies also appear in a recent contribution to the volume Shakespeare and Geek Culture (Arden, 2020) on the fantasy writings of Terry Pratchett.

Steven E. Sodergren, Ph.D.

Charles A. Dana Professor
Norwich University

Steven E. Sodergren, Ph.D., is the Charles A. Dana Professor of History at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont. He received his Ph.D. in American and Military history from the University of Kansas in 2006 and joined the faculty at Norwich in 2007. At Norwich, he teaches a variety of classes on American, military, and British history. Sodergren specializes in the American Civil War, and each summer he leads Norwich cadets on a staff ride to Civil War battlefields along the East Coast.

In 2017, Sodergren published his first book, The Army of the Potomac in the Overland and Petersburg Campaigns, which received the 2018 William E. Colby Military Writers’ Award and the 2017 Colonel Richard W. Ulbrich Memorial Book Award. His current research examines the role that veterans played in shaping the memory of the Civil War in the decades following that conflict, and he most recently had a chapter on that subject published in The War Went On: Reconsidering the Lives of Civil War Veterans by Louisiana State University Press.

Senior Research Fellows

Lisa Chalidze, Ph.D. 

Adjunct Faculty, Criminal Justice
Norwich University

Lisa L. Chalidze, Esq., has long dedicated her work as a lawyer, educator, author, and activist to the development of the rule of law and the defense of human rights. Her primary research interests are strategies for societies transitioning from dictatorship to democracy. In this regard, Professor Chalidze serves as a consultant to the National Parliamentary Library in the Republic of Georgia on the development of the rule of law and the defense of human rights, as the country struggles to overcome its Soviet past. In addition, she is an annual visitor to South Africa, where she volunteers for an NGO (of which she is also a member of the Board of Trustees), helping that country overcome the legacy of apartheid.

Lyle Goldstein, Ph.D.

Director of Asia Engagement
Defense Priorities

Lyle Goldstein is Director of Asia Engagement at Defense Priorities. Formerly, he served as a Research Professor at the U.S. Naval War College for 20 years. In that post, he was awarded the Superior Civilian Service Medal for founding and leading the China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). His main areas of expertise include maritime and nuclear security. Major focus areas have also recently included the Arctic and the Korean Peninsula. He has published seven books on Chinese strategy, including Meeting China Halfway (Georgetown UP, 2015). He speaks both Chinese and Russian and is currently writing a book on China-Russia relations. He has a Ph.D. from Princeton, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins SAIS, and a B.A. from Harvard.

Presley McGarry, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice
Norwich University

Dr. McGarry is an Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Norwich University, currently in her second year. She teaches courses in professionalism in criminal justice, introductory and advanced research methods, senior seminar, and a Seerist certificate course. Dr. McGarry holds a Ph.D. and a Master's in Criminology and Criminal Justice from UMass Lowell, as well as a Bachelor's in Psychology from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Dr. McGarry’s research focuses on the biosocial factors underlying antisocial and deviant behavior. Specifically, she explores how psychological and physiological processes — such as autonomic nervous system function — interact to shape emotional regulation, susceptibility to cognitive biases, and stress responses, particularly in the context of misinformation, disinformation, and online radicalization. By examining the mind-body connection using tools such as EEG and ECG, Dr. McGarry investigates how these physiological processes may contribute to an individual’s response to social stimuli and risk-taking behaviors. Her work also involves using an AI-based Natural Language Processing model to analyze the rhetoric and influence of online mis/disinformation. In addition, Dr. McGarry leads a joint initiative on democratic resilience with Helmuth Schmidt University through Norwich’s Peace and War Center, where she develops research and think pieces on sustaining democratic systems amidst challenges such as misinformation and political polarization.

In her interdisciplinary work, Dr. McGarry has managed several federally funded research projects funded by agencies such as the DOD, ARI, and AFOSR, contributing to the development of new methodologies for understanding the intersections of psychology, physiology, and illicit behavior. She has rebranded and led a university lab focused on these topics and has published over a dozen articles on issues such as misinformation, radicalism, and military decision-making. Outside of work, Dr. McGarry is a devoted servant to Wednesday, her Siamese cat, and Asparagus, her leopard gecko.

Logan Potskowski

Logan Potskowski is an Information Warfare (IWAR) Fellow at the Norwich University Peace and War Center. He brings more than 25 years of professional experience in the United States Army, including military operations, education, and information warfare. He currently serves as the Director of the Information Warfare Planner Course, where he designs and delivers advanced curriculum for conventional, special operations, and joint force planners focused on information warfare, deception, and the integration of information-related capabilities.

He also serves as Program Manager for the 3/124 IWAR Battalion’s Military Deception Planner Course, overseeing the conduct, training, and certification on the planning and employment of military deception in contemporary operations. His professional experience includes deployments to the Middle East and Asia, as well as work in antiterrorism operations and human trafficking investigations in collaboration with U.S. federal agencies and foreign national police forces. His work includes delivering information warfare and military deception education across the United States and to allied and partner military organizations abroad, including joint and sister-service instruction. His professional interests lie at the intersection of military practice and academic inquiry, with a particular focus on deception, influence, and the role of information warfare in modern conflict and strategic competition.

His voluntary role as an IWAR Fellow at Norwich’s Peace and War Center does not imply or constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of War or its components, and his opinions do not necessarily reflect official policies or positions of the U.S. Department of War or its components.

Robert VandenBerg, Ph.D.

Dr. Robert VandenBerg’s professional experience encompasses both the armed forces and academia, having served on active duty in the United States Air Force before completing his doctorate in sociology at the Ohio State University. As a member of the faculty at Norwich University’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice from 2020 to 2023, Dr. VandenBerg pioneered NU’s new minor in Intelligence & Crime Analysis, as well as frequently teaching courses in criminology and social science research methods. Dr. VandenBerg’s research focuses on terrorism, information warfare, the intelligence profession, and sociology of religion, and his work has appeared in the past in the International Journal of Sociology, the Handbook of the Criminology of Terrorism, Terrorism & Political Violence, Research in Social Movements, Conflicts & Change, and the Journal of Peace & War Studies. He is currently the lead author on a paper examining the correlation between extremist propaganda and subsequent terrorist attacks.

Although an American by birth, Dr. VandenBerg grew up abroad and is fluent in Norwegian and German, and enjoys dabbling in other foreign languages as opportunities arise. His favorite part of working with the Peace & War Center is having the opportunity to mentor young men and women who will go on to serve the United States as members of the armed forces, law enforcement, the intelligence community, and as engaged citizens committed to the flourishing of constitutional democracy. As a drill-status (part-time) member of the Michigan Air National Guard, Dr. VandenBerg serves as a flight commander with the 217th Air Operations Group. In his spare time, he loves to read.

Eszter Szenes, Ph.D. 

Lecturer, School of Education
University of Adelaide, Australia

Dr Eszter Szenes is a Lecturer at the School of Education, University of Adelaide, Australia, and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Resilience and Security, Norwich University, USA. Between 2020 and 2022, she was hosted by the Norwich University Peace and War Center as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Research Fellow, co-hosted by the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Central European University, Austria. Prior to joining Norwich, Dr Szenes held a postdoctoral researcher position at the Research Collegium for Language in Changing Society (RECLAS) at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland (2019-2020). From 2013-2019, she was based in the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) and Registrar Portfolio at The University of Sydney, where she completed her doctorate in Linguistics. Dr Szenes incorporates her training in linguistics, education, and sociology into her interdisciplinary collaborations, research, and teaching. She has taught in several different countries and contexts; she was a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) in The Hague, Netherlands. Her research focuses on the role of language and multimodal resources in emerging, complex, and interrelated societal threats, such as information disorder, radicalisation, and the links between climate change and (violent) extremism. She is especially interested in preventing and countering the effects of disinformation campaigns aimed at undermining democracies from the perspective of computer-mediated communication and critical digital and media literacies. As a Senior Fellow, Dr Szenes assists the Peace and War Center in collaborative research activities to support its strategic interests and initiatives. 

David Ulbrich, Ph.D. 

Dr. David J. Ulbrich has enjoyed a long association with Norwich University, teaching as an adjunct instructor in the online M.A. in History and Military History Programs from 2007 to 2017, and more recently as Associate Professor and Academic Director from 2017 to 2025 and as Associate Dean in the College of Graduate and Continuing Studies from 2022 to 2025. Previously, Ulbrich taught at several other universities, and he served as Command Historian at the U.S. Army Engineer School.

Ulbrich is an award-winning author, teacher, and consultant. He has made presentations in the United States, England, Australia, Singapore, and China on the Second World War, the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Army, and war and society. Ulbrich has published seven books, including Preparing for Victory: Thomas Holcomb and the Making of the Modern U.S. Marine Corps, 1936-1943 (Naval Institute Press, 2011) and the co-authored Ways of War: American Military History from the Colonial Era to the Twenty-First Century (3rd ed., Routledge, 2025). Ulbrich was also a guest co-editor for a special edition of the Journal of Peace and War Studies (2021) and supports Norwich’s Peace and War Center activities, including the annual Military Writers’ Symposium and the Peace and War Summit. He is revising new editions of the co-authored Race and Gender in Modern Western Warfare (De Gruyter Brill) and World War II: A Global History (Routledge).

Ulbrich is currently serving as Senior Historian at the U.S. Army Reserve Command. His voluntary role as Senior Research Fellow in Norwich’s Peace and War Center does not imply or constitute an endorsement by the U.S. Department of Defense or its components, and his opinions do not necessarily reflect official policies or positions of the U.S. Department of Defense or its components.

Faculty Fellows

Daniel Morris, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Philosophy 
Co-editor, Voices on Peace and War
Norwich University

Daniel A. Morris has been teaching in higher education for eight years. Morris’s training and research explore religion, ethics, and American democracy. His first book, Virtue and Irony in American Democracy: Revisiting Dewey and Niebuhr (Lexington Books, 2015), asked about the qualities of character that are required for democracy to flourish. His current research studies the rhetoric of force in American quests for racial justice in conversation with the Christian just war tradition. Morris has published several articles and book chapters in a variety of peer-reviewed publications and has presented scholarship at both national and regional conferences in relevant disciplines.