The Convergence - The Army's Mad Scientist Podcast

COL Stefan Banach (USA-Ret.) is a Distinguished Member of the 75th Ranger Regiment and served in that organization for nine years, culminating with command of the 3rd Ranger Battalion from 2001-2003. He led U.S. Army Rangers during a historic night combat parachute assault into Afghanistan on October 19, 2001, as the “spearhead” for the Global War on Terror. Steve subsequently led U.S. Army Ranger...

Today’s episode of “ The Convergence ” podcast features our conversation with Mr. Doowan Lee , CEO, VAST-OSINT and Board Advisor, Zignal Labs , originally published last October. Mr. Lee is a National Security expert in influence intelligence, disinformation analysis, data analytics, network visualization, and great power competition. Before joining Zignal Labs, Mr. Lee served as a professor and p...

In this latest episode of “ The Convergence ,” we talk with Keith Law , Senior Baseball Writer at The Athletic , which he joined in January 2020 after spending thirteen and a half years at ESPN . Before joining ESPN.com in June 2006, Keith spent just over four years as the Special Assistant to the GM of the Toronto Blue Jays , and prior to that had written for Baseball Prospectus . Keith Law is th...

Air Force Gaming (AFG) is the official gaming program and competition hub for the United States Air Force and Space Force.  Over 86% of Airmen and Guardians between the ages of 18-34 identify as gamers.  AFG was started to help Airmen of all ages, ranks, and backgrounds find common ground through video games, while also promoting mental acuity, fine motor coordination, and competitive excellence. ...

CAPT George Galdorisi (USN-Ret.) is a career naval aviator whose thirty years of active duty service included four command tours and five years as a carrier strike group chief of staff. He is currently the Director of Strategic Assessments and Technical Futures at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific in San Diego, California. He is also a contributing blogger for the Mad Scientist Laborato...

Dr. Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and sociologist. Her science-fiction political thriller Infomocracy was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus , Book Riot , and the Washington Post . This is the first novel of the Centenal Cycle trilogy, which also includes Null States (2017) and State Tectonics (2018).  The trilogy was a finalist for the Hugo Best Series Award of 2018.  She is als...

Peter Warren Singer is Strategist and Senior Fellow at New America . He has been named by the Smithsonian as one of the nation’s 100 leading innovators, by Defense News as one of the 100 most influential people in defense issues, and by Foreign Policy to their Top 100 Global Thinkers List.  Mr. Singer is the author of multiple best-selling, award winning books in both fiction and nonfiction.  Desc...

“The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them, into the impossible.” — Sir Arthur C. Clarke, 20th Century British science fiction writer, futurist, and inventor Mad Scientist is pleased to introduce a new series of The Convergence podcast interviews with writers, creators, and producers who have a wealth of knowledge and experience in envisioning the...

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana   (2011), Ashley’s War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops   Battlefield  (2015), and  The Daughters of Kobani (2021). Additionally, Ms. Lemmon is the Chief Marketing Officer at Rebellion Defense , and is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations , ser...

Mr. Richard G. Kidd IV , Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment & Energy Resilience, provides policy and governance for programs and activities that enable resilience and cyber-secure energy for weapon systems and installations. This includes budgetary, policy, and management oversight of programs related to climate change , compliance with environmental laws, prevention of poll...

COL John Antal served 30 years in the Army and has commanded combat units from platoon through regiment and served on division, corps, and multinational staffs. He also served at the National Training Center and has extensive ex­perience in Korea, serving multiple tours on the DMZ.  After retiring from the Army, COL Antal was selected by Mi­crosoft Games Studio to help develop an interactive enter...

Cathy Hackl is a leading tech futurist and globally recognized business leader specializing in AR, VR, and spatial computing. Ms. Hackl hosts the Future Insiders podcast and has been designated as one of LinkedIn’s Top Tech Voices .  She founded and leads the Futures Intelligence Group , a futures research and consulting firm that works with clients in tech, fashion, media, government, and defense...

COL Scott Shaw commands the Asymmetric Warfare Group (AWG), whose mission is to provide global operational advisory support to U.S. Army forces to rapidly transfer current threat based observations and solutions to tactical and operational commanders in order to defeat emerging asymmetric threats and enhance multi-domain effectiveness. In today’s podcast, COL Shaw discusses the future of ground wa...

Michael Meier is the Special Assistant to the Judge Advocate General (JAG) for Law of War Matters at Headquarters, Department of the Army.  As such, Mr. Meier serves as the law of war subject matter expert for the U.S. Army JAG Corps, advising on policy issues involving the law of war.  Mr. Meier also reviews all proposed new U.S. Army weapons and weapons systems to ensure they are consistent with...

Eli Dourado is a senior research fellow at the Center for Growth and Opportunity (CGO) at Utah State University. He focuses on the hard technology and innovation needed to drive large increases in economic growth — speeding up infrastructure deployment, eliminating barriers to entrepreneurs operating in the physical world, and getting the most out of federal technology research programs. He has wo...

David Kilcullen is Professor of Practice at the Center on the Future of War and the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University, a Senior Fellow at New America, and an author, strategist, and counterinsurgency expert. He served 25 years as an officer in the Australian Army, diplomat and policy advisor for the Australian and United States Governments, in command and operationa...

Dr. Lydia Kostopoulos is the Science and Technology subject matter expert at the U.S. Special Operations Command’s (USSOCOM’s) Joint Special Operations University where she is working on developing technology related education for the Special Operations Force Professional.  Previously, she was a Strategy and Innovation Advisor conducting forecasting work on technology and the future operating envi...

In this episode of “ The Convergence , ” we discuss reading and its implications on leadership and forecasting, the future of command selection, and cultivating effective communicators and thinkers in the future force with LTC Joe Byerly , an active duty armor officer in the U.S. Army who has served in both conventional military and Joint assignments. In 2013, LTC Byerly started From the Green Not...

The Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) is the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Artificial Intelligence (AI) Center of Excellence that provides a critical mass of expertise to help the Department harness the game-changing power of AI . To help operationally prepare the Department for AI, the JAIC integrates technology development with the requisite policies, knowledge, processes, and relation...

Today’s episode of “ The Convergence ” podcast features a conversation with Mr. Doowan Lee , Senior Director from Zignal Labs .  Mr. Lee is a National Security expert in influence intelligence, disinformation analysis, data analytics, network visualization, and great power competition. Before joining Zignal Labs, Mr. Lee served as a professor and principal investigator at the Naval Postgraduate Sc...

In today’s podcast, Major Rob Slaughter discusses Platform One (P1), an official DoD DevSecOps Enterprise Services team .  P1’s vision is to create an innovative, collaborative, and unified Defense Department that delivers freedom through continuous software integration and deployments.  Its mission is to guide, empower, equip, and accelerate DoD program offices and weapon systems through their De...

In today’s podcast, the following Army officers discuss Soldiering and talent management in the future force: MAJ Delaney Brown is a strategist with the Army Talent Management Task Force. She has deployed in a variety of roles ranging from intelligence platoon leader to regional foreign aid coordinator and served as an Assistant Professor of American Politics in West Point’s Department of Social S...

Dr. Zalman is a global futurist who helps leaders and organizations explore the implications of critical global trends and prepare their organizations for transformative change. She is a part-time professor of Strategic Foresight at Georgetown University and the CEO of the foresight consultancy Prescient, LLC , which she founded in 2017 after over a decade of hands-on experience accelerating chang...

In today’s podcast, Dr. Nesic discusses how humans remain at the center of great power competition — “ everything else are simply mechanisms being used to influence the human element ” — and how we must understand the human domain and synchronize social science in the non-kinetic, non-lethal space if we are to successfully out-compete our adversaries: The Global War on Terror (GWOT) is far from ov...

In this latest episode of “ The Convergence ,” we talk with Dr. Claire Nelson , the Founder and President of the Institute of Caribbean Studies (ICS) . Per Forbes , Dr. Nelson “ is a strategic thinker, change agent, keynote speaker and innovator,” and is listed among that publication’s 50 Leading Female Futurists . Dr. Nelson is also Ideation Leader of The Futures Forum and Sagient Futures LLC , w...