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Mitch Swenson

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New York
As seen in: The Daily Beast, Medium, The New York Times, New York Post, Thought Catalog, Guernica Mag, War is Boring
Covers:  Innovation, technology, gaming, science, defense, national security, Iraq & Middle East, East Africa, Syrian Civil War, North Africa, global conflict, cybersecurity, intelligence
Journalist, game designer, conservationist, aquanaut, button-pusher ♡
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Mermaid Robot Helps Scientists Hunt for Sunken Treasure

Mermaid Robot Helps Scientists Hunt for Sunken Treasure

The Daily Beast — More than 330 meters below the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, OceanOneK, a humanoid submersible developed by Stanford University's Robotics Lab, closed in on its target: the Aléria, a 2nd-Century Roman shipwreck that held ancient treasure. For a moment, the sub hovered just above the seabed in the silent darkness.
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This Aquatic Vehicle Is Rescuing Survivors in Ukraine

This Aquatic Vehicle Is Rescuing Survivors in Ukraine

The Daily Beast — Ukrainian mud has a special kind of stickiness to it. There's even a word for that time of the year when traveling through Ukraine is at its toughest moment: "bezdorizhzhya ", meaning "when the roads stop existing." This is the point in the spring when the snow melts and everything turns to mud.
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Here's What the Metaverse Apocalypse Will Look Like

Here's What the Metaverse Apocalypse Will Look Like

The Daily Beast — Over 25 years of emptied servers remind us digital worlds have come and gone. Whether we like it or not, metaverse fever is rising. From flaming Travis Scott towering over players in Fortnite, to suit-clad avatars arguing spreadsheets on Teams, to Facebook swapping its face for Meta-it seems there's been an onslaught of new virtual playgrounds brought to life every day.
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Teaching a Medieval Russian Martial Art in a Flatiron Basement

Teaching a Medieval Russian Martial Art in a Flatiron Basement

The New York Times — The desert boot of the instructor weighed heavily on the sternum of a student lying on a thin layer of industrial carpeting. In this low-slung and windowless room, five others were on the ground, awaiting their turn under the boot of their teacher, Sergei Maslikhov. The man under his heel grimaced but bore Mr. Maslikhov's weight stoically. This was a class at Polygon Elite, an austere training ground where the Russian martial art Systema is taught to anyone daring enough to try it.
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Mitch Swenson: Postcards from Ukraine

Mitch Swenson: Postcards from Ukraine

guernicamag.com — Photos by Mitch Swenson Simferopol. March 16, 2014 Men in blank uniforms, their faces in masks, patrol Simferopol, the capital city of the Crimean peninsula. They are Russian, that's something everyone on the streets already knows. All at once they were around. Blackwater types, except not. Specters with silencers topping their rifles. They fire bullets into the air, sometimes, towards no one, and keep themselves busy. The soldiers make the city tense but only to those that see it that way. Most of the time they are easy to avoid, the soldiers. Escalation doesn't help anyone.
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New Yorker's firsthand account of hell in Cairo

New Yorker's firsthand account of hell in Cairo

New York Post — Swenson, 23, of the Lower East Side is a former student at up state Bard College who now ma jors in journalism at the Ameri can University in Cairo. He was there when the chaos broke out and left the country for Dubai only yesterday. CAIRO -- This city has become a slaughterhouse. I saw police shoot two people to death Friday. And I was shot at the next day. My room at the Sun Hostel overlooks Tahrir Square. I'd see police roll in, cowboy style. They'd fire a bunch of tear gas, and then they'd use shotguns with ball bearings in them.
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Sudan's model citizens

Sudan's model citizens

New York Post — Her mother had fled. Her uncle would be arrested the next day. Eligha Ojok was not yet 12 years old, but she knew that Khartoum was not safe. Her cousin kept watch for police at the door. Ojok grabbed the hands of her two younger brothers and stepped into the blazing Sudan sun. Today, she worries that that was the last time she will ever see her homeland. "I thought they were dead," she says matter-of-factly of her family and friends. "It was years later that we found out only my uncle was alive in Juba.
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Faces of the Free Syrian Army

Faces of the Free Syrian Army

Medium; War Is Boring — by MITCH SWENSON The Syrian civil war is being waged by a complex mosaic of governments, rebel factions, civil councils and religious sects. The opposition is made up of volunteer militias from across Syria and the region. Many of them started as neighborhood security forces - in essence, civilians with guns defending their own homes.
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