Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is a Naval command with a graduate university mission, operated by the United States Navy and located in Monterey, California, United States.
The NPS mission is to provide "defense-focused graduate education, including classified studies and interdisciplinary research, to advance the operational effectiveness, technological leadership and warfighting advantage of the Naval service."
It offers master's and doctoral degrees in more than 70 fields of study to the U.S. Armed Forces, Department of Defense civilians and international partners. Established in 1909, the school also offers research fellowship opportunities at the postdoctoral level through the National Academies' National Research Council research associateship program.
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History
On 9 June 1909, Secretary of the Navy George von L. Meyer signed General Order No. 27, establishing a school of marine engineering at Annapolis, Maryland.
On 31 October 1912, Meyer signed Navy General Order No. 233, which renamed the school the Postgraduate Department of the United States Naval Academy. The order established courses of study in ordnance and gunnery, electrical engineering, radio telegraphy, naval construction, and civil engineering and continued the program in marine engineering.
During World War II, Fleet Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander-in-Chief United States Fleet, established a commission to review the role of graduate education in the Navy. In 1945, Congress passed legislation to make the school a fully accredited, degree-granting graduate institution. Two years later, Congress adopted legislation authorizing the purchase of an independent campus for the school.
A postwar review team, which had examined 25 sites nationwide, had recommended the old Hotel Del Monte in Monterey, California as a new home for the Postgraduate School. During World War II, the Navy had leased the facilities, first for a pre-flight training school, then for part of the Electronics Training Program. Negotiations with the Del Monte Properties Company led to the purchase of the hotel and 627 acres (254 ha) of surrounding land for $2.13 million.
The Naval Postgraduate School moved to Monterey in December 1951. Today, the school has over 40 programs of study including highly regarded M.S. and PhD programs in management, national security affairs, electrical and computer engineering, mechanical and astronautical engineering, systems engineering, space systems and satellite engineering, physics, oceanography meteorology, and other disciplines, all with an emphasis on military applications.
Former Guantanamo Bay Naval Base commander and World War II and Korean War veteran, RADM Edward J. O'Donnell, assumed the role as superintendent of the school in 1965. He himself graduated from the school in the 1930s with a degree in ordnance engineering. He would leave the role of superintendent in 1967 after retiring from the Navy.
Departments
NPS offers graduate programs through thirteen departments:
Applied Mathematics
Computer Science
Defense Analysis
Department of Defense Management
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Information Sciences
Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Meteorology
National Security Affairs
Oceanography
Operations Research
Physics
Systems Engineering
Groups
Academic Groups at NPS are interdisciplinary and responsible for one or more curricula.
Applied Cryptologic Engineering
Crowd Dynamics Modeling
Cyber Academic Group
Data Science and Analytics Academic Group
Energy Academic Group
Space Systems Academic Group
Undersea Warfare Academic Group
Faculty
NPS faculty consists of civilian professors, Permanent Military Professors, and active-duty military officers serving as instructors and researchers.
Doctorates: 298
Masters: 166
Tenure-Track: 172
Non-Tenure: 210
Instructional / Research Support: 132
Students
NPS students are mostly active-duty officers from all branches of the U.S. military, although active-duty enlisted, U.S. government civilians and officers from approximately 50 partner countries can also matriculate under a variety of programs.
Notable alumni
Academia
Ben Connable, retired Marine major, professor at the Frederick S. Pardee RAND Graduate School
David B. Hertz (Class of 1944), Operations researcher; a pioneer of Monte Carlo methods in finance
Joseph Weber (Class of 1945), Regarded as the "Father of Gravitational Wave Detection"
Astronauts
Scott Altman (Class of 1990)
Dan Bursch (Class of 1991)
Gerald Carr (Class of 1961)
Eugene Cernan (Class of 1964)
Michael Coats (Class of 1979)
Robert Curbeam (Class of 1990)
Ronald Evans (Class of 1964)
Christopher Ferguson (Class of 1992)
Mike Foreman (Class of 1986)
Stephen Frick (Class of 1994)
Kenneth Ham (Class of 1996)
John Herrington (Class of 1995)
David Hilmers (Class of 1978)
Brent Jett (Class of 1989)
David Leestma (Class of 1972)
Michael Lopez-Alegria (Class of 1984)
Victor Glover (Class of 2009)
Jon McBride (Class of 1971)
William McCool (Class of 1992)
Edgar Mitchell (Class of 1961)
Carlos Noriega (Class of 1990)
Alan G. Poindexter (Class of 1995)
Robert F. Overmyer (Class of 1964)
Government and Politics
Keith B. Alexander (Class of 1983), Director of the National Security Agency
Harry Coker, National Cyber Director; Secretary of the Maryland Department of Commerce
Samuel P. De Bow Jr., Director, NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps
Carlos Del Toro (Class of 1989), 78th Secretary of the Navy
Ed Gallrein, former Navy SEAL officer, Republican Party nominee in the U.S. House of Representatives election for Kentucky's fourth congressional district in 2026
Linda Ham - (Class of 1996), NASA executive
Elizabeth Hight (Class of 2001), Vice director of the Defense Information Systems Agency
Harvey E. Johnson Jr. (Class of 1983), Chief operating officer of Federal Emergency Management Agency
Mark Kelly (Class of 1994), Astronaut, United States Senator from Arizona
David W. May, Adjutant General of Wisconsin
John Scott Redd (Class of 1993), Director of the National Counterterrorism Center
James D. Watkins (Class of 1958), Secretary of Energy, Chief of Naval Operations
Mark Weatherford, first deputy under secretary for cybersecurity at the DHS
Thomas E. White (Class of 1974), United States Secretary of the Army
Military
Stan Arthur (Class of 1979), Vice Chief of Naval Operations
Nancy E. Brown (Class of 1999), Director for C4 Systems
Arleigh Burke (Class of 1930), Chief of Naval Operations
Arthur K. Cebrowski, Director of the Office of Force Transformation
Stanley Thomas Counts (Class of 1955), Rear Admiral; NATO RIM-7 Sea Sparrow project manager
Mark E. Ferguson III (Class of 1984), Vice Chief of Naval Operations
Lillian E. Fishburne (Class of 1982), First African-American female Rear Admiral (RDML) in the United States Navy
George A. Fisher Jr. (Class of 1972), retired Army lieutenant general, commander of First United States Army
Lee F. Gunn, Naval Inspector General USN
Cecil D. Haney (Class of 1990), Commander, U.S. Pacific Fleet
William H. McRaven (Class of 1993), Commander, United States Special Operations Command
Wayne E. Meyer (Class of 1955), Regarded as the "Father of Aegis"
John H. Miller (Class of 1957), Marine Corps Lieutenant general
Michael Mullen (Class of 1985), 17th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Edward J. O'Donnell (1930s), Superintendent of Naval Postgraduate School 1965–1967
Foreign Alumni
Qamar Javed Bajwa, Chief of Army Staff, Pakistan Army
Bujar Nishani (Class of 1996), President of Albania
Darren Henfield (Class of 2015), former Foreign Affairs Minister, Senator and Congressman of The Bahamas.