Mike Williams

Mike Williams Congressional Candidate Connecticut District 5

***Left the race at the end of October 2011 due to fundraising issues.***

Mike Williams Biography from Mike Williams for Congress

Biography of Mike Williams

Mike Williams, a fourth generation Nutmegger, was born in New Haven and raised in Southington. He attended Holy Cross School in New Britain and graduated from Southington High School. Instilled with a strong work ethic by his family, Mike followed his grandfather’s advice to study hard and excel. Mike completed an Honors B.A. with Distinction at the University of Delaware before earning an M.A. with Distinction at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics. While at the London School of Economics, Mike was editor-in-chief of a leading international studies journal.

Since grad school, Mike has worked on some of the most critical global issues facing the United States today. From 2008-2010, Mike was a member of the Research Partnership on Post-War State Building, working on solutions to foster sustainable government and security in places such as the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mike also served as an advisor to the U.S. State Department, NATO, and the U. S. Department of Defense, where he worked to strengthen diplomatic ties and advocated for policies to enhance the protection and welfare of American soldiers. For his service to military science studies, in 2010 he was elected a Fellow of the Inter-University Seminar on the Armed Forces & Society at Loyola University, Chicago.

In addition to his work for the US, Mike has advised NATO and various allied governments such as Canada and Great Britain on global security issues. Working at the highest echelon of global politics Mike is accustomed to providing rigorous analysis and workable solutions to pressing policy problems. He understands what it takes to get results and is accustomed to managing complex politics in the US and oversees.

Mike also understands how Washington works, making him an ideal candidate to advance the interests of Connecticut’s Fifth Congressional District. Mike advised the presidential campaign of Barack Obama on international security policy. Mike’s work for the campaign was a bit of home-coming as Mike started his interest in public policy as an intern in the office of Senator Joseph Biden. Senator Biden taught Mike that the most important responsibility of an elected official is to be close to his constituents and to work tirelessly on their behalf. It was Senator Biden who advised Mike to pursue graduate studies abroad and to bring the knowledge he gained overseas back to help advance the American national interest.

The author of numerous articles and two books, Mike is widely regarded as a global expert on foreign affairs. He has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford, a tenured lecturer at Royal Holloway – University of London, and the head of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies. He has lectured on political-military affairs at leading global education institutions including the NATO Defense College in Rome, the Royal Danish Defense Academy, the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, Oxford University, Cambridge University, the British Royal Defense Academy and Georgetown University.

Mike is currently a non-resident Senior Associate Scholar at the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, D.C. and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Government at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

He lives in New Preston with his partner and their two dogs.

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