Government & National Security

Olga Bertlesen, Ph.D.

Dr. Bertelsen joined Tiffin University in August 2021. Prior to that, she practiced medicine/dental surgery in Ukraine and, after earning her bachelor and doctoral degrees in History with the focus on Soviet/Russian history and intelligence at American and British universities, she conducted research and taught undergraduate and graduate courses on world history, international relations, and security and intelligence studies at Columbia University, the University of Toronto, Harvard University, New York University, the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Prescott, Arizona). 

With special interests in Ukrainian and Russian history and intelligence, her research focuses on political violence, bioterrorism, covert action, counterintelligence, and U.S. national and global security. Dr. Bertelsen is the author and editor of five books, and a great number of book chapters and articles that explore the issues of genocidal practices, state violence, U.S. national and global security, and Russian covert operations of ideological subversion. Her scholarship is grounded in empirical and archival research that she conducts in the United States and Europe, including the former KGB archives. Her most recent publications examine Russian covert operations in American academia and Russian disinformation campaigns. 

She is a recipient of numerous prestigious national and international awards, and a speaker at various international conferences, forums, and assemblies, including the United Nations. She is a member of several professional associations, and is serving as a reviewer and member of editorial boards of several prestigious scholarly journals, including Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Ideology and Politics Journal, Scripta Historica, and Kyiv-Mohyla Arts and Humanities.

Dr. Bertelsen’s research and publications shaped the vector of her collaborative work with governmental and private intelligence agencies and her consulting activities that mainly focus on the Russian covert action and U.S. national security. She actively engages her students in her research and publication activities, and among her graduate students are individuals whom she helped receive prestigious national and international awards and grants, and who have been employed by the U.S. Department of State and think tanks in the United States, Geneva, Brussels, and Toronto.

David Selnick, Ph.D.

Professor Selnick joined Tiffin University in January 2013. Prior to that, he spent 20 years in the United States Air Force, performing duty as a Cyberspace Operations officer, a Logistics officer, and a Politico-Military specialist. Professor Selnick served in numerous locations across the United States, as well as several foreign countries.

During his time in the Air Force, Professor Selnick spent four years in Ottawa, Canada, as a Foreign Exchange Officer with the Canadian Forces, serving in a semi-diplomatic capacity. He also served in Baghdad, Iraq, as part of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, where he helped plan, execute, and manage the largest logistical movement of U.S. troops and materiel since World War II--including subsistence products worth over $3 billion per year. As a result of his efforts, he was awarded the Lance P. Sijan USAF Leadership Award at the Major Command level. Professor Selnick later served as a communications officer for Special Operations Command Central, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries in the Middle East as part of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. His responsibilities included tactical and base-level communications for Special Operations Forces in the entire U.S. Central Command Area of Responsibility. In 2007, US Central Command named him the Communications Officer of the Year. Professor Selnick's last assignment prior to retiring from the Air Force was as the Chief of Cyber Security Strategy and Planning at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. There, he was responsible for numerous efforts, including working cooperatively with our defense industry partners to better protect their networks from cyber espionage and with the Intelligence Community to determine the damage that resulted (in terms of dollars, technological knowledge, and the development of countermeasures) from cyber intrusions. He also worked extensively with offices across the service to reorganize the way the Air Force manages cryptography.

He is a contributor to an ongoing joint effort between the US Army Cultural Resources program and the University of Colorado's Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands to develop and publish the first Cultural Heritage Guide for Field Commanders.

Professor Selnick is a member of the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House), an independent policy institute based in London, UK; the US Committee of the Blue Shield; the Archaeological Institute of America and its Cultural Heritage Military Panel; the Military Cultural Heritage Advisory Group; the Society for Military History; the Air Force Association; and the Jane Austen Society of North America. He is also a certified Project Management Professional ® through the Project Management Institute.

Professor Selnick has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration degree with a concentration in Management Information Systems from Bowling Green State University, a Master of Organization Development degree, also from BGSU, a Master of Arts in War Studies from the Royal Military College of Canada, and is currently pursuing his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Museum, Gallery, and Heritage Studies from Newcastle University, where he is researching the effectiveness of international laws in helping to protect cultural property in conflict zones.

Craig Stapley, Ph.D.

Dr. Stapley has been involved in the field of security studies for over 15 years and in International Relations and Comparative Politics for over 25 years. In that time, he has travelled extensively, spending time in Japan, China, the Soviet Union (in 1989), and Israel. He has also worked in government and casualty insurance fields.

Dr. Stapley received his B.A. in Japanese from Brigham Young University and was working in Oklahoma City when Timothy McVeigh staged the Oklahoma City Terrorist Bombing. Based on that experience and others, he returned to school to pursue graduate work. He completed a Master of Public Administration in 2001 and a Doctorate in Political Science with an emphasis on terrorist targeting from the University of Oklahoma in 2004.

Dr. Stapley taught at the University of Oklahoma from 2001 to 2004 as a Graduate Teaching Associate, teaching independent classes of American Government and International Relations in both traditional and online settings. He then taught at Kansas State University from 2005 to 2016 in traditional, online and video teleconference settings. While at Kansas State, he also directed the graduate program in Security Studies. Also while at Kansas State University, Dr. Stapley guest-lectured and conducted classes at the Army’s Command and General Staff College in Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He is currently an Associate Professor at Tiffin University. Dr. Stapley also has an unusual teaching background including teaching English as a Second Language as well as university classes in dance.

Dr. Stapley has presented scholarship at The Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies, and at professions conferences including the International Studies Association, the Peace Science Society, and the Southwest Social Science Association Conference.

His scholarship has appeared in such peer reviewed journals as the Open Journal of Political Science (2014), Journal of Politics (2014), International Interactions (2014), Global Security Studies (2012), and Contemporary Security Policy (2006). He has also contributed to the edited volumes Terrorism’s Unanswered Questions (2008), and The Handbook of Security (2006). Dr. Stapley has also published book reviews in the American Political Science Association Legislative Studies Section (2001).

Dr. Stapley has been a member of the editorial board of the refereed journal Global Security Studies as well as Research Associate at the Consortium for Small Arms Research, and Academic Fellow for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He has won and been nominated for University wide awards for teaching and advising.