Listen Here
DMGS-Kennan Event with Bellingcat's Alic Toler and Dr. Edward Lemon
On December 6th, Daniel Morgan Graduate School (DMGS) partner, the Kennan Institute, hosted the last event of the 2018 DMGS-Kennan Distinguished Speaker Series, featuring a talk by Aric Toler, who leads the Eurasia/Eastern Europe team at leading open-source intelligence outfit Bellingcat. Toler gave an overview of how Bellingcat conducts its research, highlighting how it identified the two Russian military intelligence agents involved in poisoning the Skripals in Salisbury in the United Kingdom earlier in 2018, found evidence of Russian involvement in the downing of MH17 in 2014 and identified an agent involved in a 2016 coup attempt in Montenegro. Toler discussed some of the sources, challenges and limitations of doing open-source intelligence research. DMGS Eurasia specialist Dr. Edward Lemon moderated the talk.
In partnership with the Kennan Institute and other organizations, DMGS hosts practitioners in the Russian and Eurasian spheres for our Distinguished Speaker Series. This is in keeping with our goal of drawing attention to the perspectives of national security professionals and other eminent experts on the most pressing challenges faced by the international community. Dr. Edward Lemon brought his expert knowledge of authoritarian governance, religion, security, and migration in Eurasia to the timely discussion of how open-source investigations can help to shed light on troubling political issues. Dr. Lemon’s expertise benefits DMGS students by allowing them to hear insight from an active practitioner, who remains on top of the latest developments in the subjects he teaches.
DMGS remains a center of excellence in graduate education, instruction, and research. Learn more about our innovative and practical teaching as well as how you could jump-start your own career in national security or intelligence by clicking the link below.
Edward Lemon, Ph.D. is the DMGS-Kennan Institute Fellow at the Daniel Morgan Graduate School.
Between September 2016 and August 2018, Dr. Lemon was a Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. He gained his PhD in international studies from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom in 2016.
Aric Toler leads research and training activities for Bellingcat on eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. He has been involved in ongoing investigations into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), the poisoning of Sergei Skripal, and the conflict in the Donbas. Additionally, he organizes Bellingcat’s workshops and training programs, including Russian-language workshops for Russian-speaking journalists and researchers in Eurasia. He studied Russian literature and linguistics in the United States (U. Kansas, M.A. 2013) and Russia.
