Christopher Colyer and Mitchell Simmons

Christopher J. Colyer, Major, United States Army is a full-time student at the Anthony G. Oettinger School of Science and Technology Intelligence at the National Intelligence University in Bethesda, Maryland. Major Colyer was commissioned as an infantry officer in 2007 and has served in a plethora of command and staff positions through company command. In 2017 Major Colyer volunteered for and was selected as a Function Area 52 (FA52) Nuclear and Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction officer and subsequently served four years at Joint Task Force Civil Support as an operations planner conducting nuclear weapons effects analysis in response to domestic terrorism and deployed on numerous Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA) operations in support of federal COVID-19 response to include hospital augmentation, mass vaccination sites, and the initial federal response to New York City in March of 2020. Major Colyer holds a B.S. in Vehicle Design / Engineering from Central Michigan University. Dr. Mitchell E. Simmons, Lieutenant Colonel, United States Air Force (Retired) is the Associate Dean and Program Director in the Anthony G. Oettinger School of Science and Technology Intelligence at the National Intelligence University in Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Simmons oversees three departments consisting of five concentrations—Emerging Technologies and Geostrategic Resources; Information & Influence Intelligence; Counterproliferation; Cyber Intelligence; and Data Science Intelligence. He teaches courses in Intelligence Collection, National Security Policy and Intelligence, and Infrastructure Assessment Vulnerability, the latter course being part of a Homeland Security Intelligence Certificate program popular with students from the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies. Dr. Simmons has almost 30 years of experience in acquisition, engineering, program management, intelligence, and infrastructure vulnerability assessment within key agencies to include National Reconnaissance Office, Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and multiple tours with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). His technical expertise includes physical and functional vulnerability of critical infrastructure from conventional explosives, nuclear, ground forces, and asymmetric threats. Dr. Simmons’ niche expertise is the exploitation of hard and deeply buried targets and he has personally collected intelligence in dozens of strategic facilities in overseas locations to include South Korea, Norway, Italy, United States, and Iraq. He participated in targeting and weaponeering recommendations for operations Southern Watch, Northern Watch, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom. Dr. Simmons is widely published in the classified and unclassified realm and his products have seen diverse readership, to include the national command authority and combatant commands. He is the author of the definitive DoD manual, published by DTRA entitled “Hard Target Field and Assessment Reference Manual” used to educate and drive intelligence collection of this important target set. He is also the co-author of DIA’s definitive Battle Damage Assessment Handbook and has participated in a study by the National Academic of Sciences, Engineering, and Math, entitled “Assessing the Operational Suitability of DOD Test and Evaluation Ranges and Infrastructure.” Dr. Simmons holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Ohio University, a M.S. from Central Michigan University which focused on human motivation, and a Ph.D. in Engineering Management from The Union Institute and University which focused on human and organization behavior.