Julia McClenon

Julia McClenon is a Strategic Coordinator for the Regional Defense Fellowship Program out of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency and the O/ASD SOLIC. She is a former U.S. Foreign Service Officer and currently serves as a faculty researcher for the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). As a Foreign Service Officer, she worked at the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou, China under Ambassador Jennifer Z. Galt.

She is a trained ethnographic anthropologist who has done fieldwork in China, Taiwan, and the U.S., focusing on sociolinguistics, behavioral anthropology, cognitive science, defense analysis, and religious worldviews. She earned her Master of Arts degree while on Regents and Rowny fellowships in Religious Studies where she studied Chinese attitudes, language, and behaviors regarding the traditional Chinese calendar. This year she is a non-resident fellow of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, a joint production of Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict project and West Point’s Modern War Institute.