Dean Wilkening is a nonresident senior fellow in the Forward Defense program of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Wilkening recently retired from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory as a senior staff scientist in the Precision Strike mission area. His work there focused primarily on hypersonic weapon kill chains. His previous research interests include ballistic missile defense, nuclear strategy and policy, and bioterrorism. He has participated in Defense Science Board Studies on advanced ballistic and cruise missile threats, constrained military operations, and multi-domain effects, and on US National Academy of Science committees on biological terrorism and ballistic missile defense.

Previously, he worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and the RAND Corporation.

Wilkening received his PhD in physics from Harvard University, is a fellow of the American Physical Society, and has published over sixty journal articles, book chapters, and monographs on a range of security topics.