Olivia Wynne Houck

Olivia Wynne Houck is a Research Associate at The Arctic Institute. Her policy research interests include militarization in the European and North American Arctics, the history of NATO, infrastructure and the relationship of Iceland and Greenland to American foreign policy.

Olivia is a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the History of Architecture where she studies the intersection of the built environment, diplomacy, and geopolitics during the Cold War. She is particularly interested in the interplay between NATO, American foreign policy, and infrastructure in the European and North American Arctics.

She has a Masters in Architectural History from the University of Virginia and a Postgraduate Certificate in Small States Studies from the University of Iceland, where she also held a National Science Foundation-Fulbright Arctic Research Award.

Olivia is a Research Fellow at the North American and Arctic Defense and Security Network and co-organizes and moderates the “AI, Security + Defense Forum,” a weekly speaker series that supports dialogue between various communities in the technology and security spaces. She has edited two series for The Arctic Institute – “NATO in the Arctic,” with Alina Bykova, and “Infrastructure in the Arctic.”