Dr. Kangas is a Professor at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University in Washington, DC. He currently works with the programs on terrorism and transnational threats as well as South and Central Asia. From 1999 to 2007, he was the Professor of Central Asian Studies at the George C. Marshall Center for European Security in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany. Prior to that, he was the Deputy Director of the Central Asian Institute, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a Fellow of the Johns Hopkins University Foreign Policy Institute in Washington, DC; Central Asian Course Coordinator, Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State; Research Analyst on Central Asian Affairs, Open Media Research Institute (OMRI) in Prague, Czech Republic, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Mississippi.

During the past fifteen years, Dr. Kangas has been an advisor to, or has run programs for NATO/ISAF, EUCOM, CENTCOM, the US Air Force Special Operations School, National Democratic Institute, International Research and Exchanges Board, American Councils, Academy for Educational Development, USIA, USAID, and other US government agencies on issues relating to Central and South Asia, Russia and the Southern Caucasus. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. He has written numerous articles and book chapters on Central Asian politics and security and is currently finishing work on a book entitled Playing Solitaire: Competing National Security Strategies in Central Asia. He received the John R. Alison Educator of the Year Award in 2005 from the USAFSOS.

He received his Bachelors of Arts from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University (1985) and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Indiana University (1991).