After witnessing the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, David charted a course for a national security career in defense and intelligence. He graduated in 2008 from Princeton University with a degree in Politics and immediately moved to DC. There, he earned a Master's degree in National Security Affairs, with concentrations in Intelligence and Public Diplomacy & Political Warfare, from the Institute of World Politics while working as a contracted counterrorism analyst for the Department of Homeland Security and subsequently as a contract lead for a CBRN incident response program at DoD's Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). In 2013, David joined the Marine Corps on active duty in signals intelligence and as a Middle East expert. He subsequently earned an MBA from NYU's Stern School of Business and, since 2021, has been working at dual-use and defense technology companies supporting civil and military government as well as commercial customers. He rejoined the Marine Corps as a reservist in the Marine Innovation Unit (MIU) in early 2024 and, later that year, founded Passway Solutions, to bring advanced security technologies based on Ukrainian defense innovations to commercial and partner markets. David is also a Defense Fellow at Marque Ventures, volunteers as the Co-Lead of the Front Range (Colorado) chapter of the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum (DEF), and is a Defense Council Member at the Truman National Security Project. He currently lives in Denver and NYC.

Patrick Tucker is science and technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move? (Current, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, The Sun, MIT Technology Review, Wilson Quarterly, The American Legion Magazine, BBC News Magazine, Utne Reader, and elsewhere.