Michael Salomone, PhD, is a professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs whose research and teaching focuses on the vulnerabilities and capabilities of military organizations. He has developed and taught courses on technology’s impact on battle, computer simulation and war-gaming, great power relations, and scenario writing and path gaming.
Presently, he and Jenna Jordan, assistant professor in the Nunn School, are completing a project for Carnegie Corporation of New York that employs a scenario based approach to explore how intense cyber conflict among the nuclear powers could escalate to nuclear war.
Why Academia?
It was somewhat a Hobson's choice. I had been drafted into the US Army in 1969 during my second year of graduate school pursuing a PhD. Because of the Army experience, I needed a couple of years to clear my head, so I went back into the Ph.D. program from which I was drafted. After that, one thing led to another, and I found out that I was good at academic pursuits as a teacher and administrator. I am the remaining founding member of the first School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech which was established in 1991.
Favorite Course to Teach?
My favorite course to teach is Technology and Military Organization, INTA 4011. The course addresses how technology has changed the way armies have organized and fought since the Hundred Years War.
Advice to Students
My advice to students is to make yourself different by developing a complementary skill to your primary education. Often that involves fluency in the language or a robust knowledge of data analytics or a knack for writing scenarios and gaming them, which is again all the rage in the business and government. But in some way you've got to stand out, so do something that sets you apart.
Hobbies
I collect wine, and I am in a wine tasting group that I've been in for about twelve years but the group itself has a thirty-year history, and I enjoy spending time with my wife and my English Bulldog.
Anything Else?
Yes, I'm really old. But I never tire of this job; I love it.
