‘Brilliant and Engaging’ — Remembering Michael Salomone and His Four Decades of Service to Georgia Tech

Posted July 21, 2026

Georgia Tech alumni who had the pleasure of taking an international affairs class with Professor Emeritus Michael D. Salomone know he had a gift for holding a classroom transfixed.

“Dr. Salomone was one of the best professors and best people I met in my time at Georgia Tech, from his ability to capture a room with battle descriptions to making everyone laugh with stories about his own life,” said Bryn Thornburgh, INTA 2018.

What many might not know, however, is he was also a consummate food and wine connoisseur. He loved to hold court at the now-defunct Veni Vidi Vici restaurant in Atlanta following university events, said his former Nunn School of International Affairs colleague, Professor Emeritus Brian Woodall. 

“Whenever I dined with Mike, it was my standard practice to try to be seated next to him. I never had a regrettable meal when heeding Mike's menu recommendations,” Woodall said.

Salomone, who retired in 2025 after more than 36 years of service to Georgia Tech, the Nunn School, and its students, passed away recently. 

A Cornerstone of the Nunn School

He was the last remaining member of the School’s original 1991 roster, having joined Georgia Tech in 1989 at the behest of his former Carnegie Mellon University colleague, —then Georgia Tech President John Patrick Crecine — to help form a new international affairs school at Georgia Tech.

Salomone’s foundational work at the intersection of technology and international affairs served as a model for the new Nunn School, according to Adam N. Stulberg, Sam Nunn School Chair in International Affairs.

“Dr. Salomone’s deft skill at managing organizational change enabled the School to make the smooth transition to embracing the STEM moorings at GT while preserving excellence at advancing social science teaching and research on international affairs,” Stulberg  wrote President Ángel Cabrera in a letter recommending Salomone for emeritus status. 

“The latter helped to pave the way for a future interdisciplinary programming profile that simultaneously speaks to the strengths of GT and distinguishes the Nunn School from peer professional schools of international affairs.”

‘Glad and Grateful to Have Learned From Him’

Alumni say Salamone’s lectures were legend.

“They were theatrical, dynamic, and unforgettable,” said Tarun Chaudhary, M.S. International Affairs 2009, Ph.D. IAST 2019, a part-time lecturer in the Nunn School who first encountered Salomone as an undergraduate student 25 years ago. 

Chaudhary recalled Salomone lying across classroom tables to reenact the likely apocryphal dying words of German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, who supposedly foreshadowed Germany's failed invasion of France by obsessing over the army's flank: “Remember, keep the right wing very strong.”

“The energy and curiosity he brought into the classroom translated into students reading deeply, asking questions, and participating fully,” Chaudhary said.

Henri Korhonen, IAML 2009, said he took as many classes with Salomone as possible, his favorite of which was a semester-long wargaming exercise.

“I made lifelong friends in that course and it is my favorite academic memory of my time at Tech, both for how hard we had to work at it and how much fun we had doing it,” 
Korhonen said. “He was brilliant and engaging and I am glad and grateful to have learned from him.”

Salomone’s passion for teaching landed him a spot in Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine’s  2018 feature on “Transcendent Teachers,” in which he spoke of his love for academia, advice for students, and his affection for teaching, even at the age of 73.

“Yes, I'm really old,” Salomone told the magazine. “But I never tire of this job; I love it.”

A Half Century of Scholarship

Salomone’s remarkable career began in 1967 with bachelor's and master’s degrees in international affairs from Lehigh University. He went on to earn his master’s degrees and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh, with a brief interruption between them by a stint in the U.S. Army after being drafted.

Following jobs at Pitt and the federal government, he joined Carnegie Mellon University in 1979, where he remained in a variety of roles until joining Georgia Tech.

Once here, Salomone served as executive assistant and senior counsel to Crecine, as assistant chair of the Nunn School, and as a professor, where he taught more than two dozen different courses over the years.

He developed many of them, including his signature courses on scenario writing and path gaming and modeling, simulation, and military gaming.

“Mike was very much ahead of his time in embracing experiential learning and his courses were extraordinarily popular with engineering and computing students captured by his ability to bring the links between technology, organization, and strategy across centuries of warfare to life in a classroom,” Stulberg said.

His work was also influential beyond the classroom, with his research and insights informing the work of practitioners in the defense industry, in Congress, and elsewhere, according to Stulberg.

Salomone was also an important mentor to other faculty members. Nunn School Associate Professor Jenna Jordan said Salomone’s work on scenario writing and path gaming has become a central pillar of her own teaching and research.

“Few people have had as profound an impact on the direction of my career, my academic interests, and the way I think about the world as Mike,” said Jordan, who is also the School’s Associate Chair. “He gave me opportunities that stretched me professionally and instilled in me a confidence that I did not always have in myself. His faith changed the trajectory of my career and, in many ways, changed my life.”

Chaudhary said he still hears Salomone’s advice in his head each time he steps to the front of a classroom: “Explain it like you’re talking to your mom across the table at Thanksgiving, but throw in a little P. T. Barnum to keep it interesting.”