image: Catherine Luther
Credit: University of Tennessee, Knoxville
A unique two-year Department of Defense (DoD) grant that pairs civilian researchers with military experts was recently awarded to Professor Catherine Luther, director of the Information Integrity Institute housed at the College of Communication and Information.
Luther teamed up with U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Jahara Matisek of the U.S. Naval War College to create a proposal for a Defense Education and Civilian University Research (DECUR) Partnership grant under the DoD’s Minerva Research Initiative. Matisek, a command pilot and military professor, has a PhD in political science and specializes in national security.
“I was intrigued by this particular call because they tried to match academia with practitioners. We create all this research but aren’t sure if it’s being related to people who might practice in these areas and could use the research,” Luther said.
She was connected to Matisek through James Andes, director of National Security Research Initiatives at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She spoke with Matisek via Zoom about the type of project they could submit to win the grant and both were excited about the prospect of working together and quickly got to work on their proposal.
Only seven proposals received DECUR grant-funding, and Luther and Matisek’s proposal, Identifying Patterns of Russia’s Malign Influence Operations in Online Spaces and Their Influences on Russian-Speaking Populations and Russian Diasporas, was granted $400,000 in funding. They plan to focus on Russian disinformation and propaganda targeting Romania, which is a former Warsaw Pact country, and Moldova, a former Eastern bloc country.
“They’re targeting Russian-speaking populations but also the Russian diaspora, so Romanian citizens but their ethnicity is Russian. We’re not only looking at the messaging and what makes it effective, but we’re going to conduct an experimental study to see the effects of the disinformation,” Luther said.
The project has additional co-investigators from UT, and from the United States Military Academy West Point:
- Chancellor’s Professor Suzie Allard, who is also CCI’s associate dean for research and director of CCI’s Research and Innovation Center, and faculty member in the School of Information Sciences
- Assistant Professor Ben Horne, who is a fellow at the Information Integrity Institute and faculty member in the School of Information Sciences
- Professor Alex Bentley with the UT Department of Anthropology
- Associate Professor Garriy Shteynberg with the UT Psychology Department, who will lend his fluency in Russian to the project alongside his academic areas of expertise
- Olga Chiriac, who has a PhD in political science and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Bucharest, as well as the Project Europe Head of the Engagement with the Irregular Warfare Initiative of the Modern War Institute
This grant opens doors for the researchers to visit experts at several institutions that have insight into the ongoing battle against disinformation, including U.S. and NATO installations. They will also visit the U.S. Naval War College to conduct workshops for both cadets and officers there. Then, in the summer of 2025, two cadets from a military institution will come to UT to work as research assistants on the project.
Luther said they’re hoping to have several deliverables come out of the research, including whitepapers, academic journal articles, and articles for military magazines. They will also create best practices for teaching military cadets and officers about Russian disinformation campaigns and strategies.