Kiron K. Skinner is the W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, where she is a member of the Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy. She also is an associate professor of international relations and politics at Carnegie Mellon University and director of the university’s Center for International Relations and Politics. Skinner is widely known in academic circles for her expertise in the areas of international relations, US foreign policy, and political strategy.

Her government service includes membership on the US Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board as an adviser on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (2001–7); the Chief of Naval Operations’ (CNO) Executive Panel (2004–present); the National Academies Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security (2009–11); and the National Security Education Board (2004–11). In 2010, Skinner was appointed to the advisory board of the George W. Bush Oral History Project.

She also serves on the boards of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington, DC; Propel Schools in the Pittsburgh area; and Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, PA. She is a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City.

Skinner is the coauthor, along with political scientists Serhiy Kudelia, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and Condoleezza Rice, of The Strategy of Campaigning: Lessons from Ronald Reagan and Boris Yeltsin (2007). She edited Turning Points in Ending the Cold War (2008), a landmark work in international history featuring a collection of essays by leading American and Russian statesmen and scholars. Additionally, Skinner has coauthored the New York Times best sellers Reagan, in His Own Hand (2001) and Reagan, a Life In Letters (2003).

A frequent contributor of opinion essays, she has written for CNN.com, National Review Online, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

Skinner holds MA and PhD degrees in political science and international relations from Harvard University and undergraduate degrees from Spelman College and Sacramento City College. She received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Molloy College, Long Island.