Uncommon leader: USAF Maj. Jayson Warren ’24 earns policy studies doctorate following research with Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub

It's not overly common to see someone like former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice serve on a dissertation defense committee at Clemson.

Then again, Jayson Warren has been anything but a common Ph.D. student.

One of only a handful of officers nationally in the U.S. Air Force (USAF) Chief of Staff Prestigious Ph.D. Program, Warren is graduating this week with a doctorate from Clemson in policy studies.

It's the latest chapter in a fascinating journey that has taken Warren from Pennsylvania home school beginnings to international exploits and back as part of a unique, wide-ranging educational and military culturalization.

Life in Reverse

Warren grew up in Hanover, Pennsylvania, affectionately known as the "Snack Food Capital of the World" because it serves as the home location of several well-known food manufacturers.

"I'm just a homeschool kid who grew up making pizzas in the family business," he says. His father, Jay, jokes that his son was like a 30-year-old in a child's body - inquisitive from day one and destined for more than the town of 16,000 had to offer.

A constant thirst for knowledge led him beyond the traditional scope of higher education. After deep consideration, he left the states for Hungary and attended Word of Life Bible Institute for two years, earning an associate's degree in 2009.

"I kind of did life backwards," says Warren, who traveled to a total of 12 countries in Europe during breaks in the program - in addition to learning about the 15-20 nations represented in his cohort. "I accumulated life experience before I went to college. I basically had an international affairs and foreign relations background, without the degree."

Hoping to leverage his international experience while also tapping into one of his interests - aviation - he transferred to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. At the time, the industry was hit hard, and Warren had a difficult time envisioning a successful transition the airlines. Instead, he set his sights on a potential military career.

He earned an Air Force ROTC scholarship and majored in governmental affairs, with a minor in strategic intelligence. After graduating from Liberty in 2012, he commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and entered active duty later that fall.

Ascending the Air Force ranks

Following tech school training, Warren served as the chief of intelligence for a helicopter squadron in Okinawa, Japan. His duties included intel update briefings, training pilots on enemy weapons systems and advising his commander on geopolitical matters. While on assignment, he deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom as the tactical operations chief for the 83^rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron - overseeing command and control for search and rescue missions in areas surrounding Kabul.

While in Japan and other overseas locations, Warren completed a master's degree online in public policy from Liberty. He focused his studies on Middle Eastern Affairs. In conjunction with his studies he became the first student to write a master's thesis for the Helms School of Government, blazing a trail for future students in a more rigorous online education.

In July 2016, Warren relocated to Robins Air Force Base - just south of Macon, Georgia - as an airborne intelligence officer onboard one of the USAF's spy aircraft. He was entrusted with his first command while also earning operational experience such as combat missions over Iraq and Afghanistan; humanitarian relief and disaster response after Hurricane Florence; and counter-narcotics operations.

The assignment was shorter than he originally planned, however.

"I got an email completely out of the blue from a one-star general I had talked to on the phone only once prior, asking me if I wanted to come help him build the USAF's new cyber component to U.S. Cyber Command," Warren recalls. "I jumped at the chance and left Georgia for San Antonio, Texas just prior to the onset of the pandemic."

In his new assignment, Warren helped integrate intelligence, cyber operations, electronic warfare and information operations under one unified command. In just six months, he ascended from deputy chief of staff to deputy director and legislative liaison for a three-star general in the commander's action group.

"The three-star I worked for is now director of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command and recently earned his fourth star," he says. "I was a small fish in a big pond, but it was key to me being competitive for the program I'm in now."

In addition to support from his superiors, his military record also helped his competitiveness, having twice earned the Meritorious Service Medal, an accomplishment achieved by less than one percent of Captains.

"You need to call Clemson"

For the past decade, the USAF's top general has sponsored the Prestigious Ph.D. program to expose rising officers - specifically Captains - to doctoral degrees in strategic studies at elite higher education institutions. Naturally, Warren was interested.

"I had to compete against every airman who had applied in the entire USAF," says Warren, who put together a solid application package. "I survived all the cuts except for the very last round, but I took it as a net positive that I was the program's runner-up."

But Warren wasn't satisfied. After speaking with Pentagon officials, he was informed he could also be part of the program if he was admitted to a university on a full scholarship.

Because contact with the outside world was limited due to working nearly 70 hours a week in a classified environment, he enlisted the help of his wife, Grace. She began cold-calling schools on his behalf and asking questions to develop a list of potential destinations.

"I came home one day and she said, 'You need to call Clemson,'" Warren recalls. "She said she couldn't put her finger on it, but they just treated her differently than every other school she had called up to that point."

Grace spoke to Lori Dickes and Laura Olson, faculty members in the Department of Political Science who were convinced her husband could complete the program in the record pace of under three years. In parallel, Warren contacted Clemson's Air Force ROTC Commander, who referred him to a Ph.D. student and former Air Force intelligence officer by the name of Steven Sheffield. At the time, Sheffield was working as a research assistant in Clemson's Media Forensics Hub.

"Sheff shared Jayson's resume with us and suggested we talk to him," says Patrick Warren, co-director of the Hub alongside Darren Linvill. "Three years later, it's worked out unbelievably well."

The Hub, Dr. Rice and graduation

The stars aligned and Warren was accepted into the policy studies Ph.D. program as a research assistant with the Media Forensics Hub. He moved his family - Grace and their two daughters, Clara and Gwendelyn - to Pendleton and started the program in the fall of 2021.

Warren's graduate school experience has been anything but normal. He has mentored undergrads affiliated with the Hub, many of whom have gone on to great achievements. He also served as a guest professor of government at his alma mater, traveling back to Lynchburg and teaching hundreds of aspiring foreign policy and national security practitioners.

While moving through a full course load in an accelerated timeline, he was competitively admitted to several top-tier programs nationally. He was accepted into the 2021-22 Economic and Strategic Dimensions of Great Power Competition Fellowship, hosted by UC San Diego's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. He was also accepted into the Hoover Institution's Summer Policy Boot Camp and International Seminar at Stanford University, both of which have since brought Warren back as faculty.

The Summer Boot Camp opened the door for Secretary Rice to serve on his dissertation committee. The program offers a policy proposal competition every year, and Warren was one of the winners for his cohort. While preparing to travel to Washington, D.C. to accept the award, he knew he had a window of opportunity to make the pitch to Rice, who serves as Hoover's director.

"Although I didn't know how to make such a proposal to a former Secretary of State, I did know how to make a 'Decision Folder' for a four-star general - so I figured they had to be more similar than not," he says. "I went to D.C. with a hard copy pitch book in hand and fortuitously ended up seated with Secretary Rice's chief of staff at dinner. She told me to email her the proposal, and it would be considered."

What Warren didn't anticipate was the reply. Sitting in his living room looking at the email on his phone, Warren was flabbergasted. He had a million different outcomes in his head but didn't expect his idea to stick.

"My wife walked in and asked, 'What's wrong with you?'" he recalls. "I simply handed her my phone."

The two met multiple times virtually, and she helped Warren shape his research question and steer him in the right direction. In their very first meeting, Rice hadn't fully sat down at the table before telling him, "Jayson, your research question is not where it needs to be."

"I replied, 'Yes mam, I know,'" he recalls. "She's been amazing. She is brilliant and one of the most humble people I have ever encountered. She has treated me no different than how any great professor treats their student. It's been a life-changing experience to have her coaching me in my dissertation."

Rice won't soon forget their first meeting in August 2023. Warren brought a signed helmet and football from Head Coach Dabo Swinney to her office at Stanford.

"Before I left for Stanford, I dropped the helmet off with Coach Swinney's staff for him to sign," he says. "When I picked it up, there was a football in the bag, too. I later found that when Coach Swinney sat down to sign the helmet and saw a sticky note with Secretary Rice's name on it, he asked his assistant, 'This is for THE Condoleezza Rice?!' Coach Swinney provided the football with a handwritten inscription."

An avid football fan and former member of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, Rice was appreciative of Swinney's personalized note, referring to him as "one of the greatest in the game" as Warren recollects. For Warren, Swinney's extra mile to help him make a good impression was just another example of how the Clemson Family rallied behind him during his Ph.D. journey.

Warren's academic journey came to an end last month last month when he successfully presented his dissertation in front of Patrick Warren, Darren Linvill, Brandon Turner and Condoleezza Rice (who joined via Zoom). Warren's research centered on state-sponsored disinformation and, specifically, troll accounts on social media. He built a novel data set of nearly 1,900 news articles and analyzed over 87,000 individual troll accounts on Twitter/X to determine emerging themes. His primary argument? Troll accounts and what they seek to accomplish are very much heterogeneous, not homogeneous as widely framed by news media and incorrectly understood by policy-makers.

"There are widespread differences in the ways countries invest in building these accounts and how they use them," he says. "We have an imperfect understanding of trolls and have built policy from it. It's a cautionary tale for the information community, because nearly eight years after the 2016 U.S. presidential election we still do not understand that there's not a one-size-fits-all approach to troll accounts."

Despite his departure from Clemson, Warren's research will continue to contribute to the Hub's mission long after graduation.

"What I've appreciated in Jayson is his curiosity combined with institutional knowledge," says Patrick Warren, who saw the Watt Family Innovation Center's Hub receive a $3.8 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in November 2022. "We jokingly say we want to fund a 'Forever Jayson' scholarship, because most Ph.D. students don't carry his kind of impact. It's been great having him here."

The joy of graduation week also brings with it the bittersweet realization that this chapter is drawing to a close.

"Jayson's Air Force career has been very busy, but we have found ways to make it work because we're a team," Grace says. "The Clemson community has been so supportive of him during this journey, and we couldn't be more appreciative as a family."

"We've enjoyed our connections, and everything has been awesome," adds Warren, who was promoted to the rank of Major during his time in Tigertown. "I've been pedal to the metal for 36 months, so I'll probably experience some withdrawal now that it's over. I know the first gameday spent in front of a TV rather than being in Death Valley will be particularly depressing."

Following graduation, Warren is set to move on to the Pentagon to be part of the Joint Staff. He knows he is not bidding farewell to Clemson for good, though.

"I'll be back eventually," he says, "because there is indeed something in these hills!"