Thomas Rid is Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

Rid’s most recent book, Rise of the Machines (2016), tells the sweeping story of how cybernetics, a late-1940s theory of machines, came to incite anarchy and war (translated into Chinese, Russian, German, Japanese, and Turkish). His 2015 article «Attributing Cyber Attacks» was designed to explain, guide, and improve the identification of network breaches (Journal of Strategic Studies 2015). In 2013 he published the widely-read book Cyber War Will Not Take Place. Rid testified on information security in front of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence as well as in the German Bundestag and the UK Parliament.

From 2011 to 2016, Rid was a professor in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. Between 2003 and 2010, he worked at major think tanks in Berlin, Paris, Jerusalem, and Washington, DC. Rid holds a PhD from Humboldt University in Berlin.

Thomas lives in Washington, DC.