MIT political scientist Erik Lin-Greenberg ‘09, the Leo Marx Career Development Associate Professor in the History and Culture of Science and Technology and a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force Reserve, recently took command of the 820th Intelligence Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Lin-Greenberg will continue working at MIT full time while in command.
“I’m honored to have the privilege of serving as squadron commander,” Lin-Greenberg says. “I’ve learned a lot about leadership as a professor, an airman, and as a reservist and look forward to serving the airmen in my squadron.”
Called to duty
Lin-Greenberg’s commitment to service was born of tragedy. “I grew up outside New York City,” he says, “and saw fighter jets flying overhead on 9/11.”
Lin-Greenberg began his military career as a member of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC). Upon graduating from MIT in 2009, he joined the Air Force, where he was commissioned as an intelligence officer. He rose through the ranks, becoming a Flight Commander at California’s Beale Air Force Base. “I really enjoyed being a member of the Air Force,” he says, “so I transferred to the Reserve when I started graduate school.”
Lin-Greenberg – whose areas of focus as a political scientist include emerging technologies, crisis escalation, and security strategy – deployed to Qatar and Afghanistan and worked with drones early in his Air Force career. He says his experiences and immersion in operations motivated much of his academic research.
“Drones are tools of war and statecraft,” he notes, and his forthcoming book explores their use in crises and conflicts since the Cold War. “My research examines how new technologies impact the use of force and decision-making during interstate conflicts.” When conducting research, he finds himself asking: “Would my boss’s boss care about the questions I’m asking?”
Lin-Greenberg also co-leads the Security Studies Program’s Wargaming Lab, a research group that investigates conflict through wargaming and helps develop best practices for academic wargaming. “Wargames are data-gathering tools,” he says, “and the lab allows me to integrate academic tools, like experiments, into wargames, which have traditionally been used by militaries.”
