Mark R. Jacobson served as Assistant Dean at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He previously served as the John J. McCloy Professor of American Institutions and International Diplomacy at Amherst College and prior to that at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service. ​Jacobson previously served in government in a number of roles as both a civil servant and political appointee, including as special assistant to the secretary of the Navy, as the first deputy NATO senior civilian representative-Afghanistan and as a Presidential Management intern. Jacobson also worked on the staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee and as a Senior Transatlantic Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. He is a veteran, having served in both the Army and Navy reserves with mobilizations to Bosnia and Afghanistan.