Armed Conflict, Public Health, & Twitter

I joined Twitter more than a year ago, but at that time it was largely unknown outside tech circles and only a handful of people in the global health, security, and international relations communities used the service. This has changed in recent months, with Twitter becoming almost mainstream.

If blogs post are the ‘conference papers’ of the internet, then Twitter is the small-talk between sessions. Currently, a growing community of security, international relations, and global health scholars and researchers use Twitter to share and debate ideas. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, this community hums with activity and discussion. To help readers of War & Health interested in joining, below are 35 global health, foreign affairs, and international security scholars, researchers, and experts active on Twitter. So sign up for Twitter, follow the people below you find interesting, and join the conversation.

• Christopher Albon - Your author.
• Louis Klarevas - A professor at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs, Louis is a maven for conflict news.
• Drew Conway - Drew is a Political Science PhD Candidate at NYU doing quantitative research into armed conflict.
• Roger Pociask - A former army officer and authority on AFRICOM and African politics.
• Michael Allen - Michael is a political science PhD candidate at SUNY researching international security.
• William Reed - A professor of political science at RICE University, William researches power and conflict using quantitative analysis.
• Tracy Arend - A graduate student in Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, Tracy researches political development and governance.
• Ryan Briggs - Ryan is a International Relations and Development PhD student at American University.
• Noah Shachtman - A writer for Wired Magazine and Wired’s Danger Room blog.
• Jonathan Hutson - Jon is the Chief Communications Officer for Physicians for Human Rights.
• Raymond Pritchett - An expert on naval affairs and blogger at Information Dissemination.
• Coming Anarchy - An anonymous author from the excellent blog Coming Anarchy. Often discusses history and world politics.
• Alanna Shaikh - An experienced aid worker and expert in global health, currently working in DC.
• Mark Drapeau - An online celebrity, Mark writes about the connection between social media and security.
• Karen Guttieri - An Assistant Research professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, Karen is an expert in stability operations and civil affairs.
• Jeffrey Lewis - Jeff is the Director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation. He is a world renown expert on nuclear weapons.
• Irv Lachow - Irv is a Senior Research Professor at the National Defense University’s Information Resources Management College. He researches the relationship between IT and national security.
• Patrick Meier - Patrick is a Henry R. Luce PhD Candidate at The Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and an expert on crisis mapping.
• Thomas PM Barnett – An expert on national security, Tom is the author of The Pentagon’s New Map and Great Powers: America and the World after Bush.
• Adam Elkus - Adam is a writer and analyst specializing in foreign policy and security.
• Jay Parker - Jay blogs about foreign policy and current events.
• NYkrinDC - NYkrinDC is an anonymous blogger writing about national security and global politics.
• Steve Schippert - Steve is a former Marine and co-founder of the Center for Threat Awareness.
• Ethan Zuckerman - Ethan works at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society researching the relationship between technology and development.
• Brian Conley - Co-founder of Alive in Baghdad, which uses Iraqi journalists to provide video reporting of daily life in the country.
• Charlie Edwards - Charlie is a senior researcher at the thinktank Demos.
• Alex Strick van Lins - Alex is a war reporter and author currently writing a book on sufism.
• Shlok Vaidya – Shlok is an analyst and thinker on conflict and technology.
• Ryan Erickson - Ryan works for the US Coast Guard and writes for the Unofficial Coast Guard Blog.
• Erik Hersman - Erik is a TED Fellow and founder of Ushahidi, a platform to crowdsource crisis mapping.
• Michael Tanji - Mike is former intelligence officer at DIA, writer, and expert on intelligence.
• Mark Safranski - Mark is an educator and author on everything from teaching to foreign affairs.
• Samuel Liles - Sam is a professor at Purdue University and an expert on cyber warfare.
• Matt Armstrong - A leading expert on public diplomacy, Matt writes at MountainRunner.us.
• John Robb - John is an author and speaker on the future of armed combat. He was named by Esquire magazine in 2007 one of the nation’s “best and brightest”.
• Alex Evans - Alex is a Non-Resident Fellow at NYU’s Center on International Cooperation working on climate change and global public goods.

Obviously this list is not comprehensive. If you know of other Twitter users that could/should be on this list, post them in the comments.

Christopher R. Albon is a political science Ph.D. specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.

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