Tad Oelstrom, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy Director National Security Program Executive Education

General Tad Oelstrom is a lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government. Research interests are associated with ongoing Executive Education programs and international security issues. More specifically, current programs are oriented towards building trust and cooperation with Eurasian countries – extending from Eastern Europe to China. Common themes in all programs are security issues that either bring countries together because of common ground or separate them because of disagreements. Interest is to build both bi-lateral and regional approaches to make the world more secure.

Research Assistant Skills: Desire to understand international relations and those security issues most critical to national survival, particularly cybersecurity. Most work would be associated with preparing for spring programs first with government officials from South Asia and second with countries of the greater Black Sea region. Online research is needed. Would provide opportunity for student to interact with program participants and to audit some of the academic presentations.

2015 Research Assistant Reflection:

The research that I did with General Oelstrom was the highlight of my experience with the program. As a history concentrator, I spent a lot of my time building causal arguments for the past. In my capacity as RA, I certainly used the ability to analyze past factors, but I also had to bring in real-time variables. This difference from my usual academic pursuits was a welcome change of pace, and created a very good experience.

-Isaac Buck '16

2012 Research Assistant Reflection:

I greatly enjoyed my experience working for General Oelstrom as an IOP research assistant this spring. My work for General Oelstrom focused on creating diagrams to illustrate the disaster response bureaucracy in South Asia for a conference he hosted this spring that brought disaster management experts from South Asia and the the US to Harvard.

I am grateful for General Oelstrom's generosity with his time and his patience with me as I came to realize that my task was more difficult than I had first imagined. The reason I underestimated the project initially is that the information available on this topic is limited, which made my research frustrating. The tremendous upside to all of this is that disaster management response in South Asia is a topic of tremendous importance and deserves greater attention, in part because it is so under-discussed. General Oelstrom is at the forefront of this important mission and my hope is that I've contributed in some very humble way to this important project.

-Benjamin Lamont ‘14