National Intelligence Summer Academy (NISA)

• The Intelligence Community (IC)
• History of U.S. Intelligence
• Roles and Missions of U.S. Intelligence Agencies
• Role of the Director of National Intelligence
• Role of Congress as an Oversight Body to the IC
• Basic Roles and Functions of the Intelligence Field
• Polygraph Demonstration
• Explore Intelligence Sources and Methods of Collection
• Current Challenges to Collection Methods
• Discovering Other Sources and Types of Intelligence
• Adversarial Intelligence Agencies
• Art of Concealment Devices and Making a Device

• Analyze the Stages of the Intelligence Cycle
• Distinguishing Between Raw and Finished Intelligence
• Role of an Intelligence Analyst
• Sharing of Information Between U.S. Intelligence Agencies
• Role of Fusion Centers
• Art of Disguise and Deception
• The Ethical, Moral, and Legal Considerations of Intelligence
• Legal Constraints and Challenges to Collection of Intelligence Domestically and Abroad
• An Introduction to Cybersecurity

Dr. Edward L. Mienie
Executive Director, Strategic Studies Program & Partnerships and Professor of Strategic & Security Studies, University of North Georgia

Patrick Barton

Dr. Patrick Barton spent over 20 years in the Signals Intelligence field. His career spanned multiple overseas assignments and nine years at the National Security Agency. He then moved into the Covert Action field, working for the U.S. Government as a pilot and sensor operator.

He holds Airline Transport Pilot and Flight Instructor licenses with multiple type-ratings and is employed as a Captain and Check Airman by Delta Air Lines, flying the Boeing 767-300ER internationally from Atlanta and New York.

He holds a B.S. in Aeronautics from Embry-Riddle, a Master of Strategic Intelligence degree from the American Military University and a PhD (Homeland Security) from Northcentral University.

Dr. Barton teaches Signals Intelligence and Cyber Warfare at the American Military University and Unmanned Aerial System topics at Big Bend Community College.

His research interests include the interface between offensive cyber warfare and signals intelligence and the impact of press publication of classified intelligence information. He is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, the OSS Society and still consults privately in the intelligence and cyber fields.

Jack Barsky

Jack Barsky’s life marks him as one of a kind. He was born in Germany, became a chemistry professor, was recruited by the KGB, spent 10 years in the United States spying for the Russians, and ended up a United States citizen and information technology executive.

Jack’s story was featured in May of 2015 on CBS 60 Minutes. His memoir “Deep Undercover” was released in March of 2017. The book has been translated into German, Swedish and Polish. Jack has appeared frequently on US cable stations such as CNN, FOX and MSNBC as well as on foreign TV including such countries as Germany, Poland, Japan, Turkey and France.

In his 6th career as a public speaker Jack has had appearances across the United States as well as in Germany, Ireland and Poland.

Dell Spry

Dell Spry is the Managing Director of Security for Chesley Brown International after previously serving the nation as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation followed by serving as an adjunct instructor with the FBI teaching national security matters at the FBI Academy.

While assigned to the FBI headquarters, Spry was a member of the National Security Council Counterterrorism Working Group, the State Department Foreign Emergency Counterterrorism Support Counterintelligence Center, and liaison to the CIA Counterintelligence Center, Counterespionage Group.

He was the lead investigator for the FBI in the Aldrich Ames investigation for which he received the FBI Director's Award of Excellence in Counterintelligence Investigation and the CIA Director's Meritorious Service Award.

Melvin Gamble

A retired Senior Intelligence officer, Mr. Gamble served in senior executive positions in the Directorate of Operations in the Central Intelligence Agency to include: Chief and Deputy Chief of Stations in Africa and Latin America; Chief of Central Asia and the Caucasus; Special Assistant to the Associate Deputy Director of Operations; Deputy Chief of European Division, and Chief of Africa Division. Mr. Gamble served five tours in Africa and one in Latin America. 

Upon promotion to the Senior Intelligence Service ranks, Mr. Gamble attended the State Department Senior Seminar Course, which comprised State, FBI, and representatives from each military service. Mr. Gamble has a B.A. in History from Howard University and a B.S. in International Public Administration from the University of Southern California. Mr. Gamble received numerous performance awards and, upon retirement, the Distinguished Certificate of Intelligence Medal, and the Director of CIA Award.  

Mr. Gamble worked for several companies in the private sector before starting his own company. He is currently President of Gamble Advisory Group, a security-consulting firm. He also serves as an advisor for security matters on the Boards of two Wall Street firms as well as the Boards of the International Spy Museum and the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation.

Brian Hooper

Brian Hooper is an attorney based in Atlanta, practicing in Georgia, Virginia, Florida, and Washington, DC. Brian’s government experience includes clandestine service in the intelligence community, later serving as the Associate Director of the Office of WMD Terrorism at the U.S. Department of State. He is the president of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) Atlanta chapter.

After completing undergraduate studies at Washington and Lee University in 1998, Brian attended the Chinese University of Hong Kong and received a Master of Philosophy degree in 2000. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 2003. After graduation, Brian clerked for Judge David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Rachel Ingram

Ms. Ingram serves as the Senior Reporting Authority (SRA) at NSA/CSS Georgia (NSAG). She is primarily responsible for ensuring that NSA intelligence products meet or exceed NSA dissemination standards, adhere to policy and guidance, and meet or exceed ODNI standards for analytic integrity. Ms. Ingram has been with the NSA since 2012, and previously held positions as an Intelligence Analyst (IA), IA Leader/Manager, and a customer liaison. Prior to that, Ms. Ingram was a member of the U.S. Air Force from 2002 – 2011. During her tenure with the Air Force, Ms. Ingram held IA and customer support positions at NSA, and got a Master’s of Science in Strategic Intelligence (MSSI) at NIU (Class of 2009). She completed the trifecta of federal employment by spending just under a year as a contractor at NSAW from 2011 to 2012.  She is passionate about intelligence analysis and knowledge management.

Ms. Ingram grew up about 45 minutes east of Cincinnati, OH. She has a B.A. in Psychology from Hawai’i Pacific University as well as her MSSI from NIU. She lives in Evans, GA, with her husband, Robert; three sons, Griffin, August, and Corbin; one daughter, Arabella; and one ornery Bernedoodle named Jarvis. She loves God, family, and football, so she can be found at home cheering for the Bengals nearly every Sunday afternoon during football season.

Ian Thomas

Ian has 25 years of federal service as an Intelligence Analyst for the National Security Agency and the U.S. Army. He has served in numerous capacities, including Analyst, Senior Analyst, Instructor, Analytic Methodologist, and Training Manager. Throughout his career he has focused on innovation in intelligence and using virtual technologies to involve non-traditional partners in the analytic process. One of his favorite assignments was serving as the Public & Private Partnership Strategist for NSA/CSS in Georgia. In this role, he pushed to make NSA more accessible to students, faculty, researchers, and others in the public sphere that can contribute to, and benefit from, the agency's mission.

Ian holds a B.A. in Political Science, an M.A. in Management and Leadership, and an M.S. in Environmental Policy. He is a graduate of the Intelligence Community's Advanced Analysis Program and has championed inter-agency analytic projects throughout his career.

Jack Barsky

Jack Barsky’s life marks him as one of a kind. He was born in Germany, became a chemistry professor, was recruited by the KGB, spent 10 years in the United States spying for the Russians, and ended up a United States citizen and information technology executive.

Jack’s story was featured in May of 2015 on CBS 60 Minutes. His memoir “Deep Undercover” was released in March of 2017. The book has been translated into German, Swedish and Polish. Jack has appeared frequently on US cable stations such as CNN, FOX and MSNBC as well as on foreign TV including such countries as Germany, Poland, Japan, Turkey and France.

In his 6th career as a public speaker Jack has had appearances across the United States as well as in Germany, Ireland and Poland.

Dell Spry

Dell Spry is the Managing Director of Security for Chesley Brown International after previously serving the nation as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation followed by serving as an adjunct instructor with the FBI teaching national security matters at the FBI Academy.

While assigned to the FBI headquarters, Spry was a member of the National Security Council Counterterrorism Working Group, the State Department Foreign Emergency Counterterrorism Support Counterintelligence Center, and liaison to the CIA Counterintelligence Center, Counterespionage Group.

He was the lead investigator for the FBI in the Aldrich Ames investigation for which he received the FBI Director's Award of Excellence in Counterintelligence Investigation and the CIA Director's Meritorious Service Award.

Lew Regenstein

A fourth generation native Atlantan, Lewis worked for several years for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, from 1966-71, concentrating mainly on Communist China, analyzing and collecting foreign intelligence information, and helping resettle defectors. He has written about ten books (two of which were nominated by their publishers for Pulitzer prizes) and hundreds of articles, book reviews, and features for newspapers and magazines on foreign affairs, national security, intelligence and espionage, World War II, the Civil War, and wildlife and the environment.

His most recent article on National Security was written in August, 2021 for The Washington Times, describing how for 69 years the Russians have covertly attacked American diplomats, intelligence officers, and military attaches abroad, using a form of pulsed energy/microwave radiation. that causes severe and sometimes permanent neurological damage, which is also the subject of a book he is writing.

He has a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Political Science from, respectively, the University of Pennsylvania and Emory University, and spent his Junior Year Abroad at the Institute for American Universities in Aix-en-Provence, France, where he learned to speak French and some German.

Merrily Baird

Merrily Baird earned a B.A. in anthropology and a M.A. in Japanese Studies before joining the CIA in 1970. First an analyst of Japanese politics, she soon reinvented herself as a North Korean specialist. Thereafter she tracked foreign nuclear bomb programs by overseeing the Intelligence Community's (IC) National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) on this subject. In the early 1980s, she was assigned overseas and then returned to Headquarters to head analytical branches in the Directorate of Intelligence. She concluded her career as a criminal investigator in the Office of Inspector General, working on the post-mortem of the Aldrich Ames spying case. In 1994, she was awarded the Intelligence Community's National Medal of Achievement in recognition of her work on hard targets and coordination with other IC agencies.

Ms. Baird is the author of the chapter on North Korean strategic thinking in "Know Thy Enemy" produced by the Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama, and a chapter summarizing her Agency career in a commercially-produced book ( "Stories from Langley"). Her love of Japanese culture is reflected in an art book published in 2001 and titled "Symbols of Japan: Thematic Motifs in Art and Design."

Melvin Gamble

A retired Senior Intelligence officer, Mr. Gamble served in senior executive positions in the Directorate of Operations in the Central Intelligence Agency to include: Chief and Deputy Chief of Stations in Africa and Latin America; Chief of Central Asia and the Caucasus; Special Assistant to the Associate Deputy Director of Operations; Deputy Chief of European Division, and Chief of Africa Division. Mr. Gamble served five tours in Africa and one in Latin America. 

Upon promotion to the Senior Intelligence Service ranks, Mr. Gamble attended the State Department Senior Seminar Course, which comprised State, FBI, and representatives from each military service. Mr. Gamble has a B.A. in History from Howard University and a B.S. in International Public Administration from the University of Southern California. Mr. Gamble received numerous performance awards and, upon retirement, the Distinguished Certificate of Intelligence Medal, and the Director of CIA Award.  

Mr. Gamble worked for several companies in the private sector before starting his own company. He is currently President of Gamble Advisory Group, a security-consulting firm. He also serves as an advisor for security matters on the Boards of two Wall Street firms as well as the Boards of the International Spy Museum and the CIA Officers Memorial Foundation.

July 17 - 21, 2023

Collegiate Level

• Cybersecurity
• Computer Science & Information Systems
• Institute for Environmental & Spatial Analysis
• Intelligence Minor
• Modern & Classical Languages
• Strategic and Security Studies
• Summer Language Institute

• Academy gives insight on intelligence field
  • UNG News, July 26, 2023
• Academy shines light on intelligence field
  • UNG News, March 10, 2023
• Academy offers intro to intelligence field
  • UNG News, March 23, 2022
• Students get taste of intelligence field
  • UNG News, July 28, 2022
• This UNG professor is creating a course that will introduce high schoolers to U.S. intelligence and national security
  • The Times, December 2, 2020
• Georgia Adds High School Coursework in Intelligence
  • SIGNAL - AFCEA's International Journal, March 18, 2021
• High Schoolers in Georgia to Benefit from New Intel Coursework
  • SIGNAL - AFCEA's International Journal, August 1, 2021
• Edward Mienie Ph.D. on University & High School Programs on Intelligence Education and IC Careers (YouTube)
• SSST - Meet Eddie Mienie, Ph.D. (YouTube)