Defense Footprint is a non-partisan project that promotes a stronger public understanding of the U.S. military. We are neither watchdog activists nor a pro-military group; instead, we present relevant statistics in an accessible way. We believe that Americans should be informed about what their largest public institution does—as a civilian-led military, the U.S. military is the responsibility of the American people. We call this need to be informed “defense literacy.” Because statistics on the military’s activities differ depending on the data source, our approach is to offer these different sources side-by-side and let people form their own opinions. We hope that increasing defense literacy will empower ordinary Americans to take informed stances on military issues—be they hawkish or dovish, liberal or conservative—and to constructively debate them in the public sphere.

MANDI CAI is a designer and developer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After graduating from Brown University, she began working for BioBright, creating visualizations and tools to realize the science lab of the future. She has spoken at Better World by Design and Boston Code Camp about the power of data visualizations. Her art and visualizations have been featured by The Pudding and Governor's Ball.

DAVID ELITZER is a Marshall Scholar and graduate student at the University of Cambridge researching urban conflict. His specialty is the destruction and protection of cultural heritage in war zones, which he approaches with an interdisciplinary methodology that draws upon his background in political science, archaeology, and design. David’s current fieldwork is in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and he is based in the Greater London area.

ERIN SCHULTE is a Marshall Scholar and graduate student at the University of Oxford’s Oxford Internet Institute. Her areas of research include online terrorism, human trafficking, and public diplomacy tactics. She is a former researcher at the Center on the Future of War and has worked with New America and the Council on Foreign Relations on defense-related projects. Her current research is using social network analysis to map human trafficking networks across the globe.