Dr. Melissa Graves
Melissa Graves is an Associate Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Intelligence and Security Studies at The Citadel. As chair, she works in close partnership with faculty colleagues to lead one of the nation’s largest undergraduate intelligence programs, overseeing undergraduate, master’s, and certificate offerings, faculty hiring and promotion, curriculum development, and program assessment. She teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in intelligence analysis, intelligence history, national security law, ethics, and analytic tradecraft.
Dr. Graves is the author of Nixon’s FBI: Hoover, Watergate, and a Bureau in Crisis (Lynne Rienner, 2020), an archival study examining executive power, institutional autonomy, and the relationship between the presidency, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the Watergate era. She is currently completing a book-length archival study of World War II–era FBI counterintelligence investigations that reconstructs a Nazi espionage and influence network operating in wartime Detroit. Her research draws on FBI, National Archives, and international intelligence collections and explores the historical foundations of modern American intelligence and domestic security practices.
Working collaboratively with faculty colleagues and institutional partners, Dr. Graves serves as a founding organizer and director of Day of Intrigue, an intelligence simulation and wargaming program originally developed at the University of Mississippi and later adapted and expanded at The Citadel through sustained departmental collaboration. The program was recognized during its University of Mississippi implementation as an effective training model within the Intelligence Community Centers for Academic Excellence and continues to evolve through teamwork and practitioner engagement. She also helped establish and continues to lead The Citadel’s annual OSINT Conference, a department-led initiative developed collaboratively to convene government, academic, and private-sector participants around emerging challenges in open-source intelligence.
Dr. Graves’s scholarship has appeared in peer-reviewed journals including International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Security Journal, Social Science Quarterly, and Journal of Cognitive Engineering and Decision Making. She is a coauthor of Introduction to Intelligence Studies, now in its third edition (Taylor & Francis, 2022), and has contributed chapters to edited volumes and reference works in intelligence studies. She currently serves as Vice President of the Intelligence Studies Section of the International Studies Association and as an editor with H-Diplo. She is a selected 2026 Non-Resident Fellow with the Irregular Warfare Initiative
Degrees
Ph.D. History (The University of Mississippi)
M.A. History (The University of Mississippi)
J.D. (The Univeristy of Mississippi)
B.A. English and Communication (Hardin-Simmons University, summa cum laude)