Commander Mark R. Williamson was a national security affairs fellow for 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 at the Hoover Institution.

CDR Williamson is the representative of the U. S. Navy. He was born in East Patchogue, New York and raised on the eastern end of Long Island in the small town of Cutchogue. He attended the State University of New York at Brockport and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in May of 1983. CDR Williamson has graduated from the U. S. Naval Test Pilot School (USNTPS), the U.S. Naval War College (NWC- awarded a Master of Arts Degree), and is matriculated in the Master of Business Administration Program at Salve Regina University. Additionally, he has completed Japanese language training at the Defense Language Institute (DLI), and subsequently represented the U.S. Navy at the National Institute for Defense Studies (NIDS) in Tokyo; a very sophisticated War College with high ranking civilian and military officers representing over 20 nations. The NIDS curriculum was administered entirely in the Japanese language. Commander Williamson has also served in other unique billets such as Joint US Military Affairs Group-Korea (JUSMAG-K) and he commanded the Navy Consolidated Brig Miramar (NCBM), the largest prison in the U.S. Navy. He has flown combat support from both land and sea. While at Hoover, he will be enrolled in the International Policy Studies Master’s Degree Program. His thesis will focus on the general psychology and human motivation that fuels/generates insurgencies, and how that insight can be used in formulating U.S. policy in the Middle East.