Todd Helmus is a nationally recognized expert on influence operations, AI-driven information threats, and behavioral science applications to national security. Over 20+ years at the RAND Corporation, he has led programs spanning military strategic communications, adversary influence detection, counter-violent extremism, and AI risk assessment — including authoring Enlisting Madison Avenue, which applied private-sector marketing principles to military IO, and the widely cited primer, AI, Deepfakes and Disinformation. His research on Russian influence operations resulted in personal sanctions by the Russian Federation in 2022. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, directed a 45-person analytical team embedded with U.S. Special Operations in Afghanistan, led Army Inform and Influence Operations acquisition studies, and delivered programs spanning multiple combatant commands to include SOCOM, CENTCOM, EUCOM, INDOPACOM and AFRICOM. He holds a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Wayne State University, with expertise in persuasion, behavioral influence, and decision-making — the human behavioral foundations of how influence campaigns succeed or fail.