Dr. Lissa V. Young, Ed.D.

Lissa V. Young is an Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Leadership (BSL) where she teaches in the Management program. She is a 1986 graduate of West Point, and a former Army aviator. She flew CH-47D “Chinook” cargo helicopters. She served on the faculty of BSL from 1996-99.

In 2000, Lissa graduated from the Army’s Command and General Staff College, and the Army selected her to command the U.S. Army’s only High-Altitude Search and Rescue Chinook unit in Fairbanks, Alaska. While there, Lissa led the effort to exhume a 90-million-year-old Ichthyosaur fossil from the Brooks Range north of the Arctic Circle. The archeological scholars of the University of Alaska had monitored this highly coveted specimen for thirty years. Lissa, seeing the opportunity to put her Chinooks and crews in the service of good, designed an extraction mission under the auspices of “Army Training.” Also, while serving in that command, she deployed to and flew counterdrug operations along the Myanmar border for the government of Thailand.

In the summer of 2002, the Army selected Lissa for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel and to join the faculty of West Point as a permanent Academy Professor. Later that summer, the Army discharged Lissa, under the auspices of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. After picking up the pieces and transitioning to the civilian sector, Lissa served as Raytheon Company’s lead sales representative for air traffic control systems in the Middle East from 2003 to 2007.

In 2007, Harvard University awarded Lissa a Presidential Fellowship to pursue her doctorate, which she earned in 2013. Her research examines the effects of stereotyping and prejudice on interpersonal assessments of competence in high performance teams, and how war has influenced the development and direction of the discipline of Social Psychology. Harvard University granted Lissa an additional doctoral concentration certificate in the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.

Lissa holds a Bachelor of Science in Literature from the United States Military Academy (1986), a Master of Arts in social psychology from the University of Kansas (1996), a Master of Education from Harvard University (2009), and a doctorate in education policy, leadership, and instructional practice (EPLIP) from Harvard University.

After Harvard, Lissa joined a fellow Harvard classmate in an entrepreneurial start-up focused on building a craft rum distillery in Ipswich, Massachusetts. The company, Privateer Rum, is thriving. In 2016, USA Today nominated Privateer for its list of the U.S.’s Top 10 Best Craft Distilleries. Privateer was the only Massachusetts distillery to receive this nomination.

In the fall of 2013, West Point selected Lissa to join the faculty of BSL once again.

In her free time, Lissa studies the history of naval navigation, roots of jazz and hip-hop music, rides her Harley Davidson motorcycles, and is a slam poetry enthusiast.