Jahara “Franky” Matisek (PhD)
Command Center Director (Joint Operations Center), U.S. Northern Command​

Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek (PhD) is a U.S. Air Force Senior Pilot serving at U.S. Northern Command that is a Fellow at the U.S. Naval War College and Fellow at the Payne Institute for Public Policy. He was previously a professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Naval War College. He has published 2 books and over 130 articles on strategy, warfare, and critical minerals for national security. He has over 3,700 hours of flight time in the C-17, E-11 BACN, T-6, and T-53 and earned a Bronze Star for commanding and directing Kandahar Airfield operations in Afghanistan. As an innovative strategist he has been a Fellow at: AFWERX, Homeland Defense Institute, European Resilience Initiative Center, Irregular Warfare Initiative, Modern War Institute, and William & Mary. Finally, he is a Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University and has been Co-PI on two Department of Defense Minerva grants and a Defense Security Cooperation University research program, being awarded over $1.2 million in research funding.