Stephen P. Aubin, Ph.D.
Dr. Aubin is an adjunct associate professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown
University. His interest in the media and security issues dates back to his 1981-1982 experience
in the Pentagon’s Newsclipping and Analysis Service (which produced a series of Current News
publications that tracked U.S. and foreign media coverage). He served on active duty in the U.S.
Army as an intelligence officer from 1982-1986. From 1986-1987, he worked in the Immediate
Office of the Secretary of Defense providing research on media coverage of defense issues and
ghostwriting for the secretary of defense. After leaving the Department of Defense, Aubin cofounded Potomac Strategies, a company that provided research and analysis on national security
issues and the defense industry. During that time, he co-edited the company newsletter, Defense
Media Review, which analyzed media coverage of national security issues. In 1989, he joined the
Center for Defense Journalism at Boston University as an Olin Research Fellow and entered the
University Professors Program as a Ph.D. candidate in National Security Studies and
Communications. The Center acquired Defense Media Review, and Aubin served as managing
editor and later as the Center’s deputy director. The Center conducted media research and helped
promote dialogue among the military, the media, and defense industry. From 1987-1992, he
served as a Reserve public affairs officer and is a graduate of the Defense Information School.
In 1992, he returned to the Washington, DC, area as Director of Communications (later Director
of Policy and Communications) for the Air Force Association, a non-profit aerospace
organization. In that role, he oversaw the association’s policy development, media relations, and
grass roots outreach. He joined the defense industry in 2000 as the Director of External Affairs
for a Joint Venture formed by Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and TRW. Beginning in 2002, he joined
The Boeing Company and served in a variety of executive-level business development and
strategy roles. In 2009, he joined The Raytheon Company as Director, Strategy Execution, in
Corporate Strategy.
Aubin has written extensively on national security and media issues. In addition to writing for
Defense Media Review for five years, he served as editor of Military Intelligence Magazine,
associate editor and later contributing editor of Strategic Review, managing editor of Airpower
History, series editor for a four-part book series on future warfare published by Avon Books, and
as Washington correspondent for International Combat Arms: The Journal of Defense
Technology. He is author of the book, Distorting Defense: Network News and National Security
(Praeger) and a chapter contributor to The Media and the Gulf War: The Press and Democracy in
Wartime (ed. Hedrick Smith). His articles have appeared in numerous defense and general
interest publications, including National Defense, Comparative Strategy, Strategic Review,
Parameters, Air Force Magazine, Defense Science, Signal, the Los Angeles Times, and The World
& I. In 1991, he won first prize ($15,000) in the Woodrow Wilson Center Essay Contest for his
study, “Portrait of a Romanian Revolution: Massacres, Monsters, and Media Manipulation.”
At Boston University, Aubin co-taught several iterations of the course, “Reporting on Military
Affairs,” in the university’s College of Communication. More recently, he has been an adjunct
associate professor in Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program. In that capacity, he
taught nine iterations of a course on the mass media and national security as a Georgetown
adjunct faculty member for the Defense Department’s Defense Leadership and Management
Program. In 2003, he taught the first iteration of his current course, “The Mass Media and
International Security.” Aubin holds a B.A. in Government and French (1980), an M.A. in
Government and National Security Studies (1982), both from Georgetown University, and a
Ph.D. in National Security Studies and Communications (1996) from Boston University.