18th International Symposium for the Interaction of Munitions with Structures

Dr. Peter Warren Singer

Strategist + Author + Senior Fellow @NewAmerica

Peter Warren Singer is Strategist at New America. He has been named by the Smithsonian as one of the nation’s 100 leading innovators, by Defense News as one of the 100 most influential people in defense issues, by Foreign Policy to their Top 100 Global Thinkers List, and as an official “Mad Scientist” for the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command. Peter’s award winning books include Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Children at War, Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century; and Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know and Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War, a technothriller crossed with nonfiction research, which has been endorsed by people who range from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to the co-inventor of the Internet to the writer of HBO Game of Thrones. His latest book is LikeWar (Oct 2018, HMH), which explores how social media has changed war and politics, and war and politics has changed social media. It was named an Amazon book of the year, a NY Times “new and notable,” and reviewed by Booklist as “LikeWar should be required reading for everyone living in a democracy and all who aspire to.”

His past work include serving at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Harvard University, an editor at Popular Science magazine, and as the founding director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings, where he was the youngest person named senior fellow in its 100 year history. 

Chris Smith

Chief Meteorologist, WJHG-TV

Chris Smith has been the chief meteorologist for the VIPIR7 Storm Team since October 2009. He came to NewsChannel 7 from CNN where he was a meteorologist for CNN, CNN International, and HLN.

Chris and his wife, Maurissa, knew northwest Florida was where they wanted to live and start a family... putting them close to his parents in South Walton and his in-laws in Southwest Georgia. Since moving here they had a son, Charlie in 2013 and then a daughter, Lilah, in 2019.

Chris has more than 20 years of experience. His career has taken him across the Peach State… from Albany, to Macon, and finally Atlanta. A graduate of Florida State University’s renowned meteorology program he also has the Seal of Approval from the National Weather Association and is recognized as being a Certified Broadcast Meteorologist by the American Meteorological Society. Chris was the first meteorologist in northwest Florida to hold that distinction.

In his spare time you can find Chris staying active and enjoying the beaches of the Emerald Coast. He enjoys working out and is on the board of directors for the Panama City Area Seminole Club. A little known fact is that he is also an ordained minister and performs many beach weddings.