Ethan Lee Copple, PhD

Ethan Lee Copple, PhD

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Ethan Lee Copple, PhD

Director of Strategy, Institute for American Manufacturing & Technology
Secretary, Board of Directors
Principal Investigator, Forge Institute

Ethan Lee Copple, PhD

Overview

Ethan Lee Copple, PhD serves as the Director of Strategy at the Institute for American Manufacturing & Technology, contributing research on the systems-level foundations of American industrial strength. He serves as Principal Investigator for the Institute’s Forge research program, directing studies on manufacturing capacity, supply chain resilience, and the defense industrial base. His work applies systems modeling, network analysis, and transdisciplinary methods to questions of supply chain resilience, manufacturing operations, and the structural conditions that shape national industrial capacity.

Biography

Ethan Lee Copple, PhD is the Director of Strategy at the Institute for American Manufacturing & Technology, a policy and research organization dedicated to strengthening the industrial foundations of the United States. A systems scientist by training, Copple brings a background in industrial engineering and applied anthropology to the Institute’s research across manufacturing competitiveness, supply chain resilience, and defense industrial strategy.

Copple’s research examines how people, policies, and infrastructure interact to determine system performance, making complexity measurable and actionable for organizations operating in high-stakes environments. His methods integrate systems modeling, network analysis, and novel metric design to help institutions understand and counteract the structural drift that undermines long-term operational resilience.

Beyond the Institute, Copple is the Principal of Systems Intelligence Consulting, serving as a subject matter expert for mathematical supply chain modeling, as a grant writer, and as a principal investigator. He is also an Industrial Engineer for an aerospace prime proprietary program. His doctoral research in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina applied a supply chain framework to healthcare delivery, producing original metrics for structural adaptability that translate directly to the coordination and infrastructure challenges shaping U.S. industrial strategy.

Copple holds a PhD and dual MS degrees in Industrial Engineering and Applied Anthropology from Oregon State University, and dual BS degrees in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering and Anthropology from Kansas State University. He is a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and a two-time Evans Family Humanitarian Engineering Fellow. His research and writing can be found at EthanCopple.com.

Areas of Focus

Manufacturing Policy: Supply chain resilience, defense industrial base capacity, and the structural and regulatory conditions required to restore large-scale domestic production. (Principal Investigator, Forge Institute)

Education

Selected Publications

Background

Copple’s professional background includes work in supply chain strategy, systems consulting, and defense industrial operations. His training in industrial and manufacturing systems engineering, combined with graduate work in applied anthropology and a deep grounding in cybernetics and systems science, informs an analytical approach that bridges technical, human, and institutional perspectives. Based in Missouri, Copple is active in his Catholic faith and engaged in the life of his local parish.

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