Michael Mosser

Associate Professor of Instruction, Director of the Center for European Studies

Dr. Michael W. Mosser is the Director of the University of Texas at Austin Center for European Studies (CES) and an Associate Professor of Instruction at UT Austin with a joint appointment in the Department of Government and the International Relations and Global Studies (IRG) program. He is a Distinguished Scholar in the Strauss Center for International Security and Law, and was the Executive Director of the Global Disinformation Lab (GDIL) from 2022 to 2024.

At the Strauss Center, he co-leads instruction of the Brumley NextGen Undergraduate Scholars program, teaching a course in policymaking every fall semester with colleague Stephanie Holmsten and providing mentorship to this select group of outstanding undergraduates.

On campus, Mosser teaches courses in European and international security, European environmental policy, comparative and European politics, international organizations, and foreign policy analysis. From 2018 to 2023, he was the inaugural faculty advisor for the University of Texas at Austin’s “Peace Corps Prep” program, and has also served as a faculty liaison to the US Department of State’s “Diplomacy Lab” program. He serves on various academic advisory bodies on campus, including as a member of the Environmental Justice (EJ) Faculty Learning Community, an Ambassador in the Experiential Learning Initiative (ELI) and a member of the non-traditional student (NTS) advisory board. He has won multiple awards for his teaching at UT-Austin, most notably being selected as a member of the 2021 “Texas Ten” by the Texas Exes, and the 2016 Raymond Dickson Centennial Endowed Teaching Fellowship.

His most recent published work (with Marion Foster) is “Small states, subregional minilateralism and European foreign policy,” in Högenauer and Mišík (eds.) Small States in EU Policy-Making: Strategies, Challenges, Opportunities (Routledge: 2024). His article “Embracing “embedded security”: the OSCE’s understated but significant role in the European security architecture” was published in European Security in July 2015. He is presently working on a project conceptualizing the impact of disinformation on the American electoral process.

A southwestern Pennsylvania native, Dr. Mosser is a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh (BA, Political Science and History) and the University of Wisconsin – Madison (MA and PhD, Political Science). He has published articles and book chapters on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as well as in the fields of military art and science and military sociology more generally. He is active in student events and activities on campus related to his research and teaching fields, has published op-eds in major Texas newspapers and has been a regular guest on KUT Radio’s “Texas Standard” news program.