Colonel (ret) Joe Felter Bio
Joe Felter is Co-Director, of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) at Stanford
University. ESOC’s core activities include efforts to compile and democratize access to high
quality micro-data on conflict cases around the world. Joe is also Founder and Senior Advisor at
BMNT Partners, a Silicon Valley based technology incubator specializing in identifying and
developing technologies with relevant applications to the defense and security in.
Joe retired from the US Army as a Colonel in 2012 following a career as a Special Forces officer
with distinguished service in a variety of special operations and diplomatic assignments. His
most recent deployment was to Afghanistan in 2010-2011 as Commander, International Security
and Assistance Force Counterinsurgency Advisory and Assistance Team. In this capacity he
planned and directed the efforts of multiple teams of senior counterinsurgency advisors deployed
across Afghanistan and reported directly to General Stanley McChrystal and General David
Petraeus.
Joe’s previous military assignments include tours as Platoon Leader with the US Army’s 75th
Ranger Regiment, as Special Forces A-Team Leader (HALO/HAHO) and Company Commander
in the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne) and as a military attaché in the Philippines where he
helped develop the counterterrorist capabilities of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. As a
Ranger and Special Forces officer, Joe conducted foreign internal defense and security assistance
missions throughout Southeast Asia and has participated in operational combat deployments to
Panama with the 75th Ranger Regiment, Iraq with a Joint Special Operations Task Force and
twice to Afghanistan.
Joe’s academic positions include service as Director of West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center
and concurrently as a member of the faculty of the Department of Social Sciences, US Military
Academy and as adjunct associate professor at Columbia University’s School for International
and Public Affairs. He is currently Senior Research Scholar at Stanford’s Center for International
Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has
testified before the US Senate and House of Representatives and appeared frequently on major
news networks discussing terrorism, insurgency and national security issues.
Joe received a B.S. from the United States Military Academy at West Point, an MPA from
Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford
University. His dissertation is entitled, “Taking Guns to a Knife Fight: A Case for Empirical
Study of Counterinsurgency.” While in the Army Joe maintained Defense Language Proficiency
Test ratings in Dari, Tagalog, Thai, Korean and German. Raised as an Army brat, Joe lives with
his family in Palo Alto and enjoys camping, endurance sports, travel and wine with friends.