Research

BluePath Labs conducts research in a variety of defense, technology, supply chain, and security areas. Leveraging a team of on-staff and associate researchers, BluePath’s expertise includes, but is not limited to, geopolitics, foreign affairs, politico-military affairs, industrial base, futures, wargaming, critical and choke point technologies, and military training exercises and operations. BluePath is adept at mapping and analyzing industry and technology ecosystems of interest by using innovative qualitative and quantitative techniques and integrating a variety of data sources. BluePath’s research clients include the Air University, the Army Cyber Center of Excellence at West Point, various defense labs, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), non-profits, the Bureau of Industrial Security, the Department of State, NATO, and the National Laboratories. BluePath researchers publish monthly columns with best-selling author and leading military futurist Peter Singer in Defense One’s China Intelligence Blog.

Featured Research Studies

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Defense One China Intelligence Blog

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Featured Researchers and Associates

Dr. Eric Hundman – Director of Research

Eric Hundman is a seasoned China analyst and open-source researcher. He has over 15 years of experience managing and conducting a wide variety of research projects for defense, business, and academic customers. Dr. Hundman is a globally recognized expert on China’s military and foreign policy who, more broadly, specializes in defense policy, military organizations, emerging technologies, and research methods. His research, analysis, and commentary have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as International Security, the Journal of Global Security Studies, and the Journal of Contemporary China, as well as in public-facing outlets such as Foreign Policy, ChinaFile, Wired, and Political Violence at a Glance. He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and spent eight years living in China and Taiwan. He received a Ph.D. and an M.A. in political science from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in physics and political science from Yale University.

Brian Davis (Brigadier General, U.S. Army, Retired) – Senior Advisor

Prior to joining BluePath, Brian Davis served in the U.S. Army for 35 years as an Armor Officer and a Foreign Area Officer (FAO), retiring in 2022. He spent 26 years of his career focused on China and Indo-Pacific security issues with multiple assignments in the region, including as Defense Attaché to China, as well as policy and strategy positions in the Pentagon. His final military assignment was as the Director of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command’s China Strategic Focus Group in Hawaii. Mr. Davis also serves as a Senior Fellow with the Center for Naval Analyses, as a Senior Advisor with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and as an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Pacific Forum. He received a Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University, a Master’s in National Security Studies from the U.S. Army War College, and a Bachelor’s in Economics from Auburn University.

​Dr. Jason Augustyn – Chief Technology Officer

As Chief Technology Officer, Jason Augustyn leads BluePath’s data science and analytics strategy, which uses both traditional statistical modeling and cutting-edge machine learning/artificial intelligence techniques to discover critical insights from structured and unstructured data. Prior to joining BluePath, Dr. Augustyn was the founder of FutureScout, LLC, a data science and analytics company focused on providing technology reconnaissance, horizon scanning, and wargaming capabilities to the Department of Defense science and technology enterprise. Earlier in his career, Dr. Augustyn served as a senior researcher at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, where he built a multi-million-dollar research and development program focused on enhancing Soldier and squad effectiveness through real-time psychological and physiological status monitoring, training, and performance modeling. Dr. Augustyn holds a Ph.D. in cognitive science from the Pennsylvania State University, where he developed novel techniques for modeling human decision-making and action planning.

Dr. Alexander Berenbeim – Senior Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Researcher

Alexander Berenbeim is a Senior Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Researcher at the Army Cyber Institute. He earned B.A.s in Economics and Pure Mathematics at Columbia University in 2011, an M.Sc. in Management Science and Engineering at Columbia University in 2012, an MMath in Pure Mathematics at the University of Waterloo in 2015, and a Ph.D. in Pure Mathematics from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2022. In addition to his current role, Dr. Berenbeim has provided both mathematical and management consultation for firms in the education, entertainment, health care, law, real estate, and software development sectors. His current research includes uncertainty quantification, neuro-symbolic learning, non-monotonic logics, and the model theory of continuous first order logics.

​Dr. Matthew Brazil – Senior Research Analyst

Matthew Brazil is a Senior Analyst at BluePath and a Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation. He pursued Chinese studies as an undergraduate at UC Berkeley, as a U.S. Army officer, and in graduate studies at Harvard University. After a stint as the China specialist for the Commerce Department’s Office of Export Enforcement, he was a Commercial Officer with the U.S. Embassy, Beijing, where he both promoted and controlled U.S. high technology exports to China. Afterward, Dr. Brazil spent 20 years as a security professional, performing investigations in China for a chip manufacturer, and leading the development of a security organization in China for an American specialty chemicals firm. His Ph.D. dissertation at the University of Sydney examined intelligence organs in the Chinese Communist Party. That scholarship and further research led to his contribution as the coauthor of Chinese Communist Espionage, An Intelligence Primer. His next book will focus on China’s current worldwide espionage and influence offensive.

Jared Murphy – Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Researcher

Jared Murphy is an artificial intelligence and machine learning researcher at the Army Cyber Institute. He earned his B.S. in Statistics from the University of North Florida in 2015, and after several years of travel and volunteer work, he was invited to attend the Rochester Institute of Technology for graduate study on full research scholarship. While at RIT, he acted as the research assistant to the director of the Data Science Master’s Program and completed that program to receive his M.S. in Data Science in 2024. His current research includes Generative AI for Cybersecurity, Domain Adaptation, Meta-Learning, and Continual Learning.    

Gabriel Collins – Senior Research Associate

Gabriel Collins is the Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental Regulatory Affairs at the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. At the Baker Institute, he co-heads the Program on Energy and Geopolitics in Eurasia. Mr. Collins’ research focuses on energy, food, water, national security, and multiple points of intersection between these issues. His research findings are regularly published in high-impact outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Naval War College Review, and the Baker Institute’s own publications. Mr. Collins received a B.A. from Princeton University and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. He reads and uses Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish in his research. Mr. Collins is licensed to practice law in Texas.     

Dr. Lukas Filler (Commander, U.S. Navy, Retired) – Research Associate

Lukas Filler has been a professor with the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies (DKI APCSS) since December 2022. He was previously a Senior Advisor (non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies as well as the Acting Director of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) China Strategic Focus Group. Prior to this, he co-led the conceptualization and formation of the East Asia Competition/Crisis Planning Group in USINDOPACOM’s Future Operations and Contingencies directorate (J35) and led the establishment of similar efforts as the Director, Asia Pacific Strategy (N5), U.S. Naval Special Warfare Command and the Navy Strategy Panel, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Operations, Plans and Strategy. Dr. Filler contributes to and continues to expand his expertise in China’s strategic culture through various efforts and communities of interest related to the U.S. Air Force Culture and Language Center and the University of Virginia’s National Security Policy Center. He also has long standing collaborations on projects related to China security and strategic issues with a focus on leveraging AI/ML technologies for Open-Source analysis with the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence (ARLIS) at the University of Maryland and Vannevar Labs. A former U.S. Navy aviator, Dr. Filler holds a Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Ph.D. from King’s College London’s Department of War Studies.

Dr. Isaac B. Kardon – Research Associate

Isaac B. Kardon is a senior fellow for China studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is concurrently adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, and was formerly assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College (NWC), where he served as a research faculty member in the China Maritime Studies Institute. Dr. Kardon’s research centers on the People’s Republic of China’s maritime power, with specialization in maritime disputes and the international law of the sea, Chinese global port development, China-Pakistan relations, and the People’s Liberation Army’s overseas basing. His writing appears in International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, the Naval War College Review, as well as other scholarly and policy publications. Dr. Kardon’s book, China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order (Yale, 2023) analyzes whether and how China is “making the rules” of regional and global order. He earned a Ph.D. in government from Cornell University, an MPhil in modern Chinese studies from Oxford University, and a B.A. in history from Dartmouth College. He was a China and the World post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University, and has held visiting appointments at NYU School of Law, Academia Sinica, and the PRC National Institute for South China Sea Studies. He studied Mandarin Chinese at Peking University, Tsinghua University, Hainan University, and National Taiwan Normal University.