Kiron K. Skinner
W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow

Expertise: American foreign policy, international relations theory, international security

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Kiron K. Skinner is the W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. She also is an associate professor of history and political science at Carnegie Mellon University.

Skinner is the editor of Turning Points in Ending the Cold War (Hoover Press, 2007), a collection of essays by American and Russian statesmen and scholars on events that led to the end of the cold war. Skinner is a coauthor of Strategy of Campaigning: Lessons from Ronald Reagan and Boris Yeltsin (University of Michigan Press, 2007). This book uses insights and applications from rational choice theory and the framework of comparative presidential studies to investigate how two statesmen once seen as on the political fringe came to commandeer the electoral center.

Skinner coedited the New York Times best sellers Reagan, in His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America and Reagan, a Life in Letters. She also coauthored Stories in His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan; Reagan in His Own Voice; and Reagan’s Path to Victory.

She regularly appears on national and international radio and television as an analyst of U.S. foreign and defense policy. Her opinion essays have appeared in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Skinner’s government service includes membership on the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Executive Panel, the U.S. Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board, and the National Security Education Board. She has cochaired the CNO task force on the Middle East and currently cochairs the task force on the new Africa Command. She also serves on the boards of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington, D.C., and the World Affairs Council in Pittsburgh. Skinner is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.

Skinner earned an A.A. in communications from Sacramento City College, an A.B. in political science from Spelman College, and an A.M. and Ph.D. in political science and international relations from Harvard University. She is the recipient of an honorary doctorate of laws from Molloy College on Long Island. Her favorite pastime is hiking in California’s mountains.