Cian Mansfield's journey to leading a national defense organization is unexpected. Born to an American mother, he spent his early years in Ireland attending an all-Irish speaking school called a Gaelscoil. The family moved to the United States when he was around eleven or twelve.

Multidisciplinary Engineering student Cian Mansfield transforms a summer revelation into a nationwide student movement for national security

During the summer of 2024, Cian Mansfield stood in the sweltering Florida heat, working as a flight test engineering intern at an area Air Force base. Surrounded by some of America's most skilled test pilots and lethal warfighters, he spent his days immersed in developmental testing—the cutting edge of military technology designed to win tomorrow's wars.

One evening, scrolling through social media, Mansfield came across a video that would change everything. The footage showed an autonomous drone swarm from a foreign university navigating flawlessly through a forest, no human operator required. While Americans in the comment section celebrated it as a humanitarian breakthrough for agriculture and search-and-rescue operations, Mansfield saw something entirely different.

"All I could imagine seeing this video was a downed American fighter pilot behind enemy lines desperately trying to evade capture while this autonomous drone swarm scans a forest with intent to kill them," he recalls. "It not only demonstrated a complete lack of awareness, but a total lack of urgency to maintain our technological lead."

That moment sparked an idea. Within days, Mansfield reached out to contacts at the base, and posted a LinkedIn interest form. Within a week, he held the first executive meeting over Discord, and the Purdue National Defense Society was born.

Building through adversity

The early days tested Mansfield's resolve. The first callout meeting drew nearly 80 students. The follow-up meeting brought 50. Then disaster struck when the team held a haphazard, agenda-less meeting. "The following meeting we had half of that," Mansfield remembers. "It was scary at first."

But the team regrouped, realizing they needed to deliver genuine value. "We realized that with time we would build a genuine substantiated member base with real return on investment for those who decided to dedicate their involvement to the organization."

The breakthrough came through a representative with a national laboratory organizing a Department of Energy National Labs Day at Purdue. The representative wanted NDS to host and staff the career fair for 19 national laboratories. NDS delivered—400 students attended, and the organization earned early recognition as a group that could execute when called upon.

Funding remained challenging. "We had tons of big ideas, but no money to work with." The team secured support from the Student Fees Appropriations Board, and scored an even bigger win when NDS's proposal for a National Defense & Security Week was approved as part of the College of Engineering's 150th anniversary celebrations.

That event, also known as NDS Week, scheduled for November 10-14, 2025, has evolved into NDS's flagship initiative. The five-day program will feature career fairs, panel discussions, guest speakers, and interactive displays across multiple locations at Purdue. It represents the culmination of everything NDS has worked toward—bringing together students, faculty, industry partners, and military leaders to build awareness and excitement around national defense careers.

The momentum continued. NDS recently received approval as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit, opening doors to corporate partnerships. Perhaps most significantly, NDS has begun franchising chapters at other universities.

The weight of leadership

Before founding NDS, Mansfield's only formal leadership experience came from serving as a varsity captain in high school sports. "Learning all the organizational skills to put people in the right places where their strengths could be best utilized was definitely something I had to learn and develop," he explains.

Early on, his intense investment in NDS led to micromanagement. "I felt a huge level of personal stake in the success of NDS, so I always wanted to micromanage and ensure that people were producing work that lived up to my personal expectations and vision."

A mentor's advice proved crucial: put responsibility and trust in your people. "To micromanage and control your team members' individual direction is to be suffocating as a leader," Mansfield learned. "Without it, it's impossible for team members to feel like a valued part of the overall effort."

He now views NDS's success as collective achievement. "It really belongs to all those who have helped build it. I can only take as much credit as keeping the ship's rudder generally in line with where I envisioned us heading. It was the constant dedicated efforts of my incredibly talented team that kept the wind in our sails."

From Ireland to American defense

Mansfield's journey to leading a national defense organization is unexpected. Born to an American mother, he spent his early years in Ireland attending an all-Irish speaking school called a Gaelscoil. The family moved to the United States when he was around eleven or twelve.

His interest in national defense runs deep, rooted in family history. Both grandfathers served in the American military, and his great-grandparents fought as commanders in the Irish Republican Army during the 1920s revolution. Other Mansfield family members from his Irish hometown joined the Allied war effort in World War II, participating in the invasion of Normandy.

Mansfield draws particular inspiration from the Irish Brigade—5,000 Irishmen led by Brigadier General Thomas Francis Meagher, an immigrant from Mansfield's home county of Waterford, who fought in some of the Civil War's bloodiest battles and sustained some of the Union Army's heaviest casualties.

"I think that more than anything it's important to understand the sacrifice immigrants oftentimes make in the leaps of faith they take coming from wide and far to start new lives in America—all in pursuit of the same promise of the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," he says. "Nowadays, the Irish are revered in America—but people must remember this wasn't always the case."

The unconventional path

Mansfield's academic journey has been anything but straightforward. He came to Purdue determined to study aerospace engineering, only to be rejected four times. He pivoted to Electrical and Computer Engineering, struggled there too, and eventually discovered he could combine his coursework into the Multidisciplinary Engineering program and graduate within five years.

His internship path was equally unconventional. After a near-miss opportunity with Boeing at China Lake during his sophomore year, Mansfield went "full-throttle on cold calling, emailing, and reaching out to just about anyone I could." He ended up passing his resume to a test pilot with a significant Instagram following, not realizing that the pilot was the operations group commander in charge of four test squadrons at the Air Force base in Florida. 

"The next day I was hired without an interview over the phone, and told to report to the base in the summer."

His enthusiasm there knew no bounds. "I was suddenly surrounded by career test pilots and the Air Force equivalent of TOPGUN instructors." So much so that his constant questions about highly classified systems led to him being flagged as a potential insider threat. "I guess I was deemed a non-threat because I was invited to return the following summer."

This past summer, Mansfield gained commercial defense industry experience doing flight testing on uncrewed aerial systems with Autonodyne in Boston.

Looking ahead

Mansfield's vision for NDS extends far beyond Purdue. "It's my intention to stay on as the executive director of the national organization and drive the ship for a good while into my professional career," he says. His benchmark? The National Society of Black Engineers, which started at Purdue in 1975 and now boasts over 35,000 members nationwide with $25 million in annual revenue. "I think to aim our sights any lower than that would be discounting NDS's potential."

He plans to commission into the Navy to fly after graduation, with the ultimate goal of becoming a test pilot—though he recently attended Tailhook in Reno, Nevada, and is figuring out how to balance military service with leading a national organization.

Reflecting on his five years at Purdue, Mansfield is candid. "I seemed to hit almost every roadblock I could on my way through college." His personal highlight came from earning his pilot's license, working as a cashier at a local restaurant to save money for flight training, with support from his parents. He completed it in the FAA's minimum required 40 hours.

"Purdue has been the single most difficult undertaking of my entire life thus far—for which I am grateful, because I can now sleep well at night knowing that whatever life throws at me, it will not be more difficult than pursuing a Purdue engineering degree."

As National Defense & Security Week approaches this November—five days of career fairs, panels, speakers, and displays designed to inspire the next generation of defense professionals—Mansfield's vision continues to take shape.

"I've seen what we did inside of a year, and I've seen what my team is capable of," he says. "I believe strongly in the mission and the necessity for an organization like the National Defense Society. NDS is exactly what we need to help shape America's readiness posture to best tackle the problems of tomorrow."