David aims to be a "pracademic", someone whose scholarship, research, and commentary is informed by previous service as an intelligence practitioner. Before coming to academia, he spent a year in private risk consulting and then over a decade as an intelligence officer in the US government, beginning in 2000 in the Special Operations Division of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. In 2001, David earned a coveted federal appointment as a Presidential Management Fellow in the FBI’s National Security Division, where he was responsible for all-source intelligence analysis, counter-intelligence, and counterterrorism investigations, and participated in the FBI’s intelligence community collaboration and international liaison on these topics. In 2003, David entered on duty with the Central Intelligence Agency and served as an intelligence analyst in the DCI's Counterterrorist Center (CTC) covering political and terrorism issues. He then earned field certification as an operations (‘case’) officer and served multiple operational tours with portfolios covering counterintelligence, overseas clandestine operations, and covert action. David earned several Exceptional Performance Awards but resigned from the CIA in 2011 to enroll in a PhD program at Cambridge University. David hopes to continue serving, in a way, from the outside by demystifying intelligence and by showing its crucial role in statecraft and military affairs.
