Alethia Cook

Alethia Cook

Ph.D.
Professor & Department Chair
Brewster Hall

Biography

Dr. Alethia Cook is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science. Her current research interests include the policy challenges posed by different categories of weapons of mass destruction; terrorism; pandemic disease; civil conflict dynamics and the factors that influence them; emergency response to catastrophic disasters; technologies and (in)security; and other homeland and international security issues.

Dr. Cook teaches classes in the Security Studies program, including Introduction to Security Studies, Security Studies Foundations, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Politics of Terrorism. She earned her PhD in Public Policy with a focus on American foreign and defense policies at Kent State University in 2006.

Before joining academia full time, Dr. Cook spent 17 years as a corporate research manager for a defense consulting firm, where she researched topics ranging from weapons of mass destruction and terrorism to drone policy and anticorrosion technology. She joined ECU in 2007 to help develop the university’s Master of Science in Security Studies program and has since served as director of the Security Studies program in addition to her role as department chair.

Political Science Department chair for 10 years. Co-primary investigator on a grant proposal researching policy and practices associated with the U.S. Military’s Right to Repair equipment. Played a key role in developing the department’s curriculum and classes for Security Studies programs, including the Master of Science, Graduate Certificate, Undergraduate Minor, Multidisciplinary Studies BA and BS, and, most recently, the BS and Flight Path programs.

  • Homeland and International Security
  • Emergency Response to Terrorism
  • Weapons of Mass Destruction
  • Ph.D. in Public Policy (American Foreign and Defense Policy), Kent State University, 2006
  • M.A. in Political Science / International Relations, The University of Akron
  • Terrorist Organizations and Weapons of Mass Destruction: U.S. Threats, Responses, and Policies (2017). Rowman & Littlefield.
  • Conflict Dynamics: Civil Wars, Armed Actors, and Their Tactics (2017, with Marie Olson Lounsbery). University of Georgia Press.