Colonel Suzanne C. Nielsen is a Professor and the Deputy Department Head of the Department of Social Sciences at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. Responsible for an academic major and associated electives, as well as a core course taught to every cadet, she teaches courses in international relations theory and national security. She also chairs the Academy’s Scholarship Committee which selects and prepares cadets to compete for the Rhodes, Marshall, Truman, and other nationally-competitive scholarships.
A distinguished graduate from the United States Military Academy, she also holds a masters and a doctorate in political science from Harvard University. She was a Marshall Award recipient from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College where she earned a masters degree in strategy and is a graduate of the National War College.
COL Nielsen's books include American National Security, 6th Edition, which she co-authored, and American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era, which she coedited, both released by Johns Hopkins University Press in 2009. Other publications include monographs on understanding military change and the civil-military relations of strategy, chapters in the edited volume The Future of the Army Profession, and articles in Defence Studies, International Studies Perspective, Public Administration and Management, and Military Review.
COL Nielsen's research interests include change in military organizations, civil-military relations, and strategy.