Jacek Durkalec is a staff officer at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. Prior to joining NATO, he served as a senior fellow (2020-2023) and as a postdoctoral research fellow (2017-2020) at the Center for Global Security Research (CGSR) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). Jacek was also a research analyst at the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) from 2010 to 2017, a staff member in the Missile Defense Office of the Polish Ministry of National Defense in 2009-2010, and an intern in the Strategic Planning Unit of the Executive Office of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in 2008. In 2015, he was a visiting scholar at the National Security Affairs Department of the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He holds a doctorate in political science (2016) and master’s degree in international relations (2008) from Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. He has been a CISAC affiliate since 2019.

Jacek authored more than 60 publications and presented at more than 60 conferences and seminars on topics related to US extended deterrence in Europe and the Indo-Pacific region, NATO deterrence and defense policy, nuclear and conventional arms control, missile defense, and WMD non-proliferation.