Core Curriculum

Mia Bloom, Ph.D.

Columbia, Associate Professor Penn State's Schools of International Studies and Women's Studies

Mia Bloom is a leading expert on suicide terrorism and is author of Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (2005). She holds a doctorate in political science from Columbia University, a master's in Arab studies from Georgetown University, and a bachelor's degree in Russian and Middle East studies from McGill University. In addition to her research on terrorism, Dr. Bloom conducts research on ethnic conflict, the strategic use of rape in war, and child soldiers. Her book, Bombshell: Women and Terror, was published by Penguin in 2010.

John Christman, Ph.D.

Illinois, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Political Science, and Women's Studies

John Christman's research interests in political theory include contemporary political thought, political liberalism, feminism and critical race theory, conceptions of autonomy, equality, and theories of property. His articles have been published in Social Theory and Practice, Political Theory, and Philosophy & Public Affairs. He has also published several books including his most recent, The Politics of Persons: Individual Autonomy and Socio-historical Selves, which is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

Paul  B. Thompson, Esq.

J.D., University of Baltimore; LL.M., Georgetown University, Instructor of Political Science and Homeland Security

Paul B. Thompson recently retired as professor of national security studies and law at the National War College. While there, he also served as a fellow at The Bush School at Texas A & M University. Thompson served for many years in national government, in positions such as U.S. National Security Council staff assistant to the President, senior legal adviser to the Chief of Naval Operations, and senior legal and legislative adviser to the Secretary of Defense.

Homeland Security

Thomas Arminio, M.A.

U.S. Naval War College, Instructor

Thomas Arminio, a native of Union, New Jersey, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1977 with a bachelor's degree in international security affairs, and from the U.S. Naval War College in 1996 with a master's degree in national security and strategic studies. He spent nearly six years as director of emergency management services in a private-sector consulting firm and twenty-four years in a variety of challenging assignments in the U.S. Navy, retiring in 2001.

Captain Arminio's education and training experience has spanned nearly three decades, across a wide spectrum of student ages, academic achievement levels, and academic/training environments, including K–12 (as a substitute teacher), the undergraduate and graduate levels, professional development, and community/civic volunteer training. From curriculum and program development and lecturing, to aircraft and flight simulator training, Captain Arminio has educated and trained students, professionals, elected and appointed public officials, military personnel, senior Department of Defense civilian personnel, international students, and community volunteers. As an instructor at the U.S. Army War College, he taught more than 250 senior U.S. military officers, senior international fellows, and senior Department of Defense civilians in a graduate-level seminar environment and made significant contributions to the curricular development of these courses: Implementing National Military Strategy; Advanced Warfighting Studies Program; and Sea Power—Naval Strategy and Operations. In 1998 he was awarded the Admiral William F. Halsey Chair in Maritime Studies.

As director of emergency management services for an $8 million/year private-sector consulting firm, Captain Arminio initiated, developed, led, and sustained a profitable new line of business with an annual budget exceeding $600,000 and directed a team of a dozen professionals. He was primarily responsible for identifying and assessing challenges and opportunities for resolution; developing and exploring process alternatives; analyzing costs, benefits, and impacts; developing long-range and contingency plans; effectively channeling and managing resources; and optimizing solutions to achieve organizational goals.

Jeremy Plant, Ph.D.

Virginia, Professor of Public Administration and Public Policy

Jeremy F. Plant is the coordinator of the graduate programs in public administration in the School of Public Affairs at Penn State Harrisburg, where he has taught since 1988. Prior to joining Penn State, Dr. Plant taught at George Mason University and the University at Albany, SUNY. Dr. Plant graduated magna cum laude from Colgate University and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received master's and doctoral degrees in government from the University of Virginia. He is a Vietnam-era veteran who served in the Military Police Corps. Dr. Plant's research focuses on the areas of administrative ethics, homeland security, and transportation policy and administration. His publications have appeared in the Public Administration Review, the American Review of Public Administration, the Review of Policy Research, Public Integrity, the Journal of Urban Affairs, the International Journal of Public Administration, Public Works Management & Policy, and several other journals. Dr. Plant has also written/edited two books and contributed a number of chapters to multi-authored books. He has presented more than seventy conference papers on a variety of topics. He is a founding member of the American Society for Public Administration's Section on Ethics and Section on Transportation Policy and Administration and currently serves on the executive committee of each. He chaired the Section on Transportation Policy and Administration from 1998 to 2000 and has been appointed to several committees of the ASPA and the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration.

Peter Forster, Ph.D.

Penn State, Instructor

Peter K. Forster holds a doctorate in political science (international relations) from Penn State and is an instructor in the Department of Political Science. He is also the associate director of Penn State Outreach's international and homeland security initiatives. After participating on a number of working groups in NATO's Partnership for Peace Consortium since 2001, he was asked to contribute to NATO's Partnership Action Plan on Defense Institution Building and is the project manager for the Public Administration and Good Governance Reference Curriculum part of this initiative.

Dr. Forster's research focuses on security sector reform, NATO policy, and terrorism. He is the co-author of a book on military burden sharing beyond NATO's traditional area of operation (2005) and has published articles on U.S. interests in central Asia and the Caucasus, security sector reform in Uzbekistan and Ukraine, and the role of intelligence in homeland security. He serves on the AFRICOM Resource Group and has contributed to the development of the Department of Homeland Security's Professional Development and Strategic Studies curriculum. He also serves on the Homeland Security Defense/Education Consortium's subcommittee on curriculum development and works with the Naval Postgraduate School's University and Agency Partnership Initiative. At Penn State he teaches courses on terrorism, international relations theory, Middle East politics, U.S. foreign policy, and war in world politics.

Jim Powers, Ph.D.

U.S. Army, Retired Colonel

James F. Powers, Jr. currently serves as a consultant for two governmental organizations whose mission nexus is with homeland security and defense – Penn State and the U.S. Special Operations Command. Powers was appointed as Pennsylvania's Director of Homeland Security on June 5, 2006 and retired from that position in October 2010. As director, Powers served as the commonwealth's primary point-of-contact on homeland security issues and the governor's senior advisor on homeland security issues for the nation's 6th most populous state comprising 67 counties, over 2,500 municipalities, and 500 school districts.

From October 2001 through mid 2006, Colonel Powers served as a special operations consultant with KWG Consulting of Waterford, Virginia; an adjunct faculty instructor with the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; and a senior fellow with the Joint Special Operations University, U.S. Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. As a senior fellow with the JSOU he authored Civil-Military Operations and Professional Military Education (JSOU Press, May 2006) and Filling Special Operations Gaps with Civilian Expertise (December 2006).

Before serving as a special operations consultant and senior fellow, Colonel Powers served 30 years as a career U.S. Army Special Forces officer with assignments in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Far East, and the CIA. Mr. Powers is a graduate of the University of Alabama (B.A. German, 1969); the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (1986); and the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania (1996). He holds a master's in public administration (MPA, 1996) from Shippensburg University, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.