About Meridian Influence Group

Dr. Todd C. Helmus

Todd Helmus has spent over 20 years at the RAND Corporation leading programs at the intersection of AI, influence operations, and national security. He is the lead author of Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation — the landmark RAND report that made the Washington Post front page, introduced private-sector branding and audience segmentation to military strategic communications, and became a foundational reference for military information operations professionals worldwide.

Todd authored ^ 'Artificial Intelligence, Deepfakes, and Disinformation: A Primer' — a foundational resource with over 33,000 downloads and 180+ academic citations. He led multi-year research programs on election interference across the 2018, 2020, and 2024 cycles, built ML-based detection systems for coordinated inauthentic behavior and adversary propaganda, and created the RAND Program Evaluation Toolkit for Countering Violent Extremism, which DHS mandated for all terrorism prevention grant recipients. 1

He has led programs spanning 25+ countries, served as a counter-terrorism advisor to Multi-National Forces - Iraq and directed a 45-person analytical team embedded with U.S. Special Operations in Afghanistan

His research on Russian influence operations was impactful enough to result in personal sanctions by the Russian Federation in 2022 — a direct measure of adversarial impact. He testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on countering foreign influence and advised U.S. Senate staff on regulatory frameworks for generative AI.

Todd 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 why information campaigns succeed or fail. He is adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University, Syracuse University, and American University.