Student Highlight: Shawn Moore
Shawn with General Richard B. Myers, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Shawn is working at National Defense University (NDU) in Washington D.C. and loving it. He is assigned to the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies (CHDS), a regional center within NDU designed to educate defense and security officials from countries throughout the Western Hemisphere in order to enhance partner nation capacity and build mutual trust and confidence among the nations of the hemisphere. CHDS runs a series of short term, 1-3 week seminars throughout the year in Washington as well as numerous other events held in the region. Shawn has the opportunity to participate in these events as well as work with an international staff of renowned stature doing research on a variety of topics. Shawn is assigned to Dr. Evan Ellis, one of the foremost scholars on China-Latin America relations; currently studying Chinese organized crime within Latin America
Given the international staff, Shawn has the opportunity to work and converse in Spanish
as well as English. He also gets to rub shoulders on a daily basis with staff that
includes the likes of General Carlos Ospina, the former Commander of the Columbian
Army! (General Ospina commanded the Colombian Armed Forces during perhaps the most
critical time period in Colombia's history and helped lead a successful campaign against
the FARC.) Other faculty and staff include both a former Ambassador and Director of
International Affairs for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as well as the
former Director of Counterterrorism Finance Programs in the U.S. Department of State's
office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism.
This summer is a busy one and includes some fascinating events. The first week of June, CHDS launched its three week course entitled, Inter-Agency Cooperation and Combating Terrorism (ICCT), for which it brought in to D.C. some 45 participants from throughout the hemisphere. 2 Other events include a Sub-Regional Conference in Santiago, Chile and multiple National Security Planning Workshops, which will aid governments in Central and South America in further developing national security strategies. CHDS also runs several NationLab exercises that will help Partner nations improve their defense and security development. (These NationLab exercises are similar to Professor Amos Guiora's Counterterrorism simulations at the University of Utah's S.J. Quinney College of Law - a class available to MIAGE students. 3)
Being located in Washington D.C., CHDS is often the forum of choice for senior governmental leaders from throughout the hemisphere to make key policy addresses. Since last October, CHDS has hosted the Ministers of Defense of Chile and Ecuador and visits by several Vice Ministers as well. In April of this year, CHDS hosted the former president of Colombia, Dr. Uribe.
So far, Shawn loves his time and his work at NDU. Not only is he getting to know NDU's incredible faculty but is also thoroughly enjoying working with some amazingly qualified interns. He also loves the fact that he gets to play basketball in the same gym as President Obama. (Yep, the same place where President Obama got stitches. Shawn pleads innocent!)