Mershon Center for International Security Studies

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Mershon Center for International Security Studies The Mershon Center for International Security Studies fosters interdisciplinary faculty and student research on national security in a global context. Ralph D.

The Mershon Center for International Security Studies is the fulfillment of a bequest by Col. Mershon to The Ohio State University for the exploration of matters pertaining to national security. The Mershon Center is also supported by community gifts and grant money. Mershon was a man of action in public life. He organized the American engineers for service in World War I and led a public effort to create the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He was also an inventor who held a number of patents for his work in electrical engineering. Mershon died February 14, 1952, and is buried in Zanesville, Ohio. The Mershon Center encourages collaborative, interdisciplinary research projects within the university and with other institutions around the world. It supports research by both individual faculty members and multidisciplinary teams. The center also organizes conferences, symposia, and workshops that bring together scholars, government officials, and business leaders from around the world to discuss the latest research in national and international security affairs. Finally, it hosts visiting scholars and post-doctoral fellows, and supports student research.

Christopher McKnight Nichols, Mershon Center Hayes Chair, is live today at noon PT/3pm ET on NPR syndicated Oregon Publi...
10/15/2026

Christopher McKnight Nichols, Mershon Center Hayes Chair, is live today at noon PT/3pm ET on NPR syndicated Oregon Public Radio program Think Out Loud with Dave Miller giving a historians perspective on where we are as a nation.

Historian Christopher McKnight Nichols shares where we are as a nation amid a period of intense political polarization, concerns about the future of our democracy and the role the electorate can play in shaping it.

Join us Oct 22 to hear Furniss winner Fiona Cunninham talk about her award-winning book "Under the Nuclear Shadow: China...
10/14/2026

Join us Oct 22 to hear Furniss winner Fiona Cunninham talk about her award-winning book "Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security" (Princeton University Press, 2025), which examines China’s distinctive approach to the dilemma of coercing an adversary under the shadow of nuclear war, which relies on substitutes for nuclear threats.

Register

Chirstopher McNight Nichols, Mershon Center Hayes Chair in National Security, talked to The Conversation US about U.S. '...
10/09/2026

Chirstopher McNight Nichols, Mershon Center Hayes Chair in National Security, talked to The Conversation US about U.S. 'strategic credibility' - from Vietnam to Iran.

‘Credibility is on the line’ has long been a refrain guiding U.S. foreign policy.

Nowshin Sharmila’s Mershon-funded research project is a steppingstone for creating new models for ground-level problem-s...
10/07/2026

Nowshin Sharmila’s Mershon-funded research project is a steppingstone for creating new models for ground-level problem-solving. A graduate student in Women’s, Gender, and S*xuality Studies who just finished her master’s degree, Sharmila examined the nature of the informal economy of bribes and extortion in illegal s*x work economies in Bangladesh in her research project "Invisible Economies: Informal S*x Work in Dhaka, Bangladesh." Read more https://mershoncenter.osu.edu/news/nowshin-sharmila-explores-ground-level-solutions-bangladesh

Teri Murphy & Derek Congram talked to NBC4 about how Mershon Search Lab and Colombia’s Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas d...
09/23/2026

Teri Murphy & Derek Congram talked to NBC4 about how Mershon Search Lab and Colombia’s Unidad de Búsqueda de Personas dadas por Desaparecidas (UBPD), a state agency, work together to help identify 137,000 missing people in Colombia.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio State University researchers are helping Colombian authorities in their quest to identify and bring home 137,000 missing people. “When we bring these things to li…

"Just Security" published a contribution from Dakota Rudesill, professor of law and Mershon affiliate, on their online s...
09/11/2026

"Just Security" published a contribution from Dakota Rudesill, professor of law and Mershon affiliate, on their online symposium on 9/11 that includes essays by national security professionals who experienced 9/11 and had their work and lives shaped by it.

Rudesill said: “the selfless courage of the passengers on Flight 93 who probably saved the Capitol and many of us who were there, framed my own decision to move from budgeteering on Capitol Hill to a career in the law.”

Read the full reflection

How the September 11 attacks, and the U.S. response that followed, changed the world and the way we approach the moment we are in today.

Peter Mansoor, Mershon Center's Mason Chair in Military History, recently appeared on CNN as one of the military experts...
09/10/2026

Peter Mansoor, Mershon Center's Mason Chair in Military History, recently appeared on CNN as one of the military experts unpacking Hegseth's purges of U.S. military leadership.

In the aftermath of the resignation of Army Secretary Dan Driscoll,...

Madhumita Dutta, associate professor of Geography & Mershon affiliate, published an article in The Wire about Jahlma Nal...
09/02/2026

Madhumita Dutta, associate professor of Geography & Mershon affiliate, published an article in The Wire about Jahlma Nallah, a glacial stream that floods in the sun. This phenomenon, affecting thousands of rural mountain households, local economy and ecology every summer, has no well-researched global parallels to explain what is happening in this remote part of the Indian Himalayas.

This phenomenon, affecting thousands of rural mountain households, local economy and ecology every summer, has no well-researched global parallels to explain what is happening in this remote part of the Indian Himalayas.

Read how Christopher McKnight Nichols, Mershon Center Hayes Chair in National Security, is leading a new conversation on...
07/10/2026

Read how Christopher McKnight Nichols, Mershon Center Hayes Chair in National Security, is leading a new conversation on US grand strategy.

What has been, is, and should be U.S. grand strategy?

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154 N Oval Mall, 1010 Derby Hall
Columbus, OH
43210

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