Dr. Jeffrey D. Peterson serves as a Professor of Security Studies to facilitate learning for national security professionals. Prior to arriving at the National War College, he served as the Senior Advisor for Character Integration to the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy to prioritize and integrate character development into West Point's leader development system.
Previously, he served in the US Army for 28 years in a variety of leadership and staff positions in the United States, Korea, Cuba, and the Middle East to include a combat battalion command during “the surge” in Iraq. Following command, he served as an Academy Professor at West Point and directed the economics program from 2008 to 2014. In 2012, then COL Peterson served as the director of the Center for the Army Profession and Ethic (CAPE), where he led the effort to publish the Army’s first doctrinal manual on the Army Profession and Ethic. Upon retirement from active duty, he continued serving at West Point as the USMA Class of 1969 Chair for the Study of Officership from 2015 to 2021. In that role, he designed and stewarded the West Point Superintendent’s capstone course on Officership, designed character and leader development programs, and advised senior academy leaders on the state of West Point’s character development efforts.
He is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy (1987), the MIT Sloan School of Management (1997), and holds a Ph.D. in Policy Analysis from the Pardee RAND Graduate School (2008).
Functional Expertise: Post-Conflict Economic Development, Army Profession and Ethic, Leadership and Character Development