Thomas Bruneau is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), Monterey, California. He taught at NPS for 26 years before retiring in 2013. He has conducted seminars throughout Latin America on democratic civil-military relations for the Center for Civil-Military Relations. His more recent books include Patriots for Profit: Contractors and the Military in U.S. National Security (Stanford, 2011), Maras: Gang Violence and Security in Central America edited with Lucía Dammert and Elizabeth Skinner (Texas, 2011), and The Routledge Handbook of Civil-Military Relations edited with Cris Matei (Routledge, 2013). His recent articles deal with Latin American civil-military relations, Brazilian intelligence reform, and Central American street gangs.

Florina Cristiana (Cris) Matei is a Lecturer at the Center for Civil-Military Relations (CCMR) at the United States Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), which she joined as a Research Associate in 2003. Cris has researched, published and lectured on a wide range of issues concerning civil-military relations, democratization, Security Sector Reform (SSR), intelligence, countering/combating terrorism, organized crime, and street gangs. Cris earned a M.A. in International Security Affairs from NPS, and a B.S. in Physics (Nuclear Interactions and Elementary Particles) from the University of Bucharest. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of War Studies of the King’s College (University of London). She is the co-editor (with Thomas Bruneau) of The Routledge Handbook of Civil – Military Relations, published in 2012.