Christopher Whyte, Ph.D.

Associate professor

EXPERTISE

• Global cyber conflict, cyber operations decision-making and U.S. cyber policy
• Social subversion, influence campaigns and extreme non-state actors
• Artificial intelligence safety, ethics and risk management

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Political Science, George Mason University School of Policy, Government and International Affairs

B.A., International Relations, College of William & Mary

B.A., Economics, College of William & Mary

M.A., Political Science, George Mason University

Christopher Whyte is an associate professor (with tenure) in the Wilder School's program on homeland security and emergency preparedness where he teaches and perform research on a range of international security topics that consider the intersection of information technology and conflict. Specifically, his research program spans three topical areas – (1) the socio-cognitive context of cyber operations; (2) coordinated social subversion and the conduct of Internet-enabled political warfare; and (3) the impact of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies on both of the above. 

His scholarly and analytic work on cyber conflict and trends in international politics scholarship spans five books, including most recently Subversion 2.0: Leaderlessness, the Internet, and the Fringes of Global Society (Oxford University Press, 2024) and Information in War: Military Innovation, Battle Networks, and the Future of Artificial Intelligence (Georgetown University Press, 2022). His research has also appeared more than three dozen times in peer-reviewed journals, including among others International Studies Quarterly, Terrorism & Political Violence, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, Journal of Cybersecurity, Journal of Global Security Studies, Journal of Information Technology & Politics, Journal of Cyber Policy, New Media & Society, Contemporary Security Policy, International Studies Review, Politics and Governance, Comparative Strategy and Strategic Studies Quarterly. His commentary has appeared in Foreign Policy, U.S. News & World Report, War on the Rocks, CSO Online, CPO Magazine and Richmond Times Dispatch.

Whyte received his doctorate and master's degrees in political science from George Mason University and his bachelor's degree in International Relations and Economics from the College of William and Mary. He was previously a non-resident fellow with Pacific Forum CSIS and a fellow at the Center for Security Policy Studies, George Mason University. He also worked in various roles at several national security think tanks, including the Cato Institute, the Center for the National Interest and the Center for a New American Security. He assists numerous universities with their cybersecurity programming, including Missouri State University and Middlebury Institute of International Studies. He grew up in Glasgow, Scotland and, despite having lived on the East Coast for more than two decades, maintains a strong interest in rugby union and British politics."

RECENT PUBLICATIONS