Rate My Professor Brian Fonseca

Dr. Brian Fonseca is Vice Provost for Defense and National Security Research, Director of the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, and founding Executive Director of Cybersecurity@FIU at Florida International University’s Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs. He also serves as an adjunct professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations. A graduate of Florida International University, where he earned a Ph.D. in Political Science and Government, degrees in International Business and International Relations, Fonseca attended Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, and National Defense University in Washington, D.C. Before joining FIU, he held the position of Senior Research Manager for Socio-Cultural Analysis at United States Southern Command’s Joint Intelligence Operations Center South. From 1997 to 2004, he served in the United States Marine Corps, facilitating training of foreign military forces in hostile and peacetime operations.

Fonseca’s expertise centers on U.S. and Latin American governance, national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, with specific interests in Venezuela, China, Russia, Iran, and public policy responses to COVID-19. He is a Cybersecurity Policy Fellow and International Security Fellow at New America and chairs the Americas Linkage Committee of the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce. His media analyses appear locally, nationally, and internationally; he is the on-air political analyst for WSVN-Fox News in South Florida and has testified before the U.S. Congress in 2019 and 2021. Notable publications include Culture and National Security in the Americas (Lexington Books, 2017, co-edited with Eduardo A. Gamarra), Democracy and Security in Latin America (Routledge, 2021, with Orlando J. Pérez and Gabriel Marcella), and The New US Security Agenda: Trends and Emerging Threats (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, with Jonathan D. Rosen). Additional contributions encompass book chapters on cyber competition in the Western Hemisphere (2022), Cuba’s political dynamics (2022, 2018), and cultural influences on national security in Peru and Haiti (2017).