Dr. Nick Armstrong is Managing Director of Research and Data at the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), and adjunct professor at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

A member of the IVMF executive team, Armstrong leads the IVMF’s research agenda as well as its enterprise-wide data governance and analytics. He oversees an interdisciplinary insights team of more than two dozen applied social scientists, evaluators, and data engineers. His team executes a multi-million-dollar portfolio of sponsored social and policy research, program evaluations, and data sharing efforts with public, private, and social sector partners. Additionally, he drives the IVMF’s internal data strategy to provide reliable insights supporting global delivery of workforce training and technical assistance services to more than 20,000 military-connected individuals each year. Delivered in close partnership with Syracuse University’s Maxwell School, Armstrong is also the founding co-director of the Veterans Program for Politics and Civic Engagement, launched in 2019.

Prior to joining the IVMF in 2014, Armstrong was a research fellow with the Syracuse University Institute for Security Policy and Law. There he led studies on security sector reform, statebuilding, disaster resilience, and wartime contracting, and oversaw the development and launch of a new graduate certificate program in post-conflict reconstruction.

Armstrong has testified before the U.S. Senate and House, the New York State Assembly and published widely on veterans affairs and foreign security sector assistance. In 2019, Armstrong was named to the HillVets100 list of the nation’s 100 most influential veterans, service members, and veteran-community advocates. He was recently appointed to a Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission task force of experts to study the coordination of veterans’ services in the Commonwealth among all federal, state, local, not-for-profit, and private organizations.

Armstrong and his team have secured significant funding for applied research and social sector innovation from more than three dozen public sector and nationally-recognized philanthropic organizations. His commentary and research have been featured in outlets such as Defense One, Military Times, Armed Forces & Society, Frontiers Psychology, Translational Behavioral Medicine, Journal of Intervention & Statebuilding, and Homeland Security Affairs. In addition, Armstrong has made appearances on MSNBC, C-SPAN, PBS, Government Matters, NPR, CBS radio, Federal News Radio, and been quoted in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

A U.S. Army veteran, Armstrong served for eight years, with nearly three years deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Bosnia. Among several leadership and staff positions, he was selected for the roles of Aide-de-Camp to the Deputy Commanding General, and then Speechwriter and Special Assistant to the Commanding General, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry). His distinctions include two Bronze Star Medals, the Combat Action Badge, and the Ranger Tab.

Armstrong is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point (B.S.) and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University (Ph.D., M.P.A.). He has also completed executive education training in advanced data analytics from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.