Tom Nichols

Dr. Thomas M. Nichols is a Professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and at the Harvard Extension School, where he worked with the U.S. Air Force to create the program for the Certificate in Nuclear Deterrence Studies. He is a former Secretary of the Navy Fellow, and held the Naval War College’s Forrest Sherman Chair of Public Diplomacy. Dr. Nichols was previously the chairman of the Strategy and Policy Department at the Naval War College. Before coming to Newport, he taught international relations and Soviet/Russian affairs at Dartmouth College and Georgetown University.

Dr. Nichols was personal staff for defense and security affairs in the United States Senate to the late Sen. John Heinz of Pennsylvania, and was a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. He is currently a Senior Associate of the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs in New York City. He was recently a Fellow in the International Security Program at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University.

He is the author of several books and articles, including Eve of Destruction: The Coming of Age of Preventive War (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), and No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security (University of Pennsylvania, 2014). His most recent book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters was released by Oxford in 2017.

Dr. Nichols holds a PhD from Georgetown, an MA from Columbia University, the Certificate of the Harriman Institute for Advanced Study of the Soviet Union at Columbia, and a BA from Boston University.