Intelligence

Amy Zegart

Amy Zegart is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University. She is also a senior fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, chair of Stanford’s Artificial Intelligence and International Security Steering Committee, and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. She specializes in US intelligence, emerging technologies and national security, grand strategy, and global political risk management.  The author of five books, Zegart has applied her award-winning research to the bestseller Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence (Princeton, 2022); Bytes, Bombs, and Spies: The Strategic Dimensions of Offensive Cyber Operations (Brookings, 2019), coedited with Herb Lin; Political Risk: How Businesses and Organizations Can Anticipate Global Insecurity (Twelve, 2018), coauthored with Condoleezza Rice; and the leading academic study of intelligence failures before 9/11, Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11 (Princeton 2007). Her op-eds and essays have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Politico, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Wired, and elsewhere.  At Hoover, Zegart serves as the director of the Robert and Marion Oster National Security Affairs fellows program and cochair, with John Taylor, of the Technology, Economics, and Governance Working Group. She has been featured by the National Journal as one of the ten most influential experts in intelligence reform. She served on the Clinton administration’s National Security Council staff and as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush 2000 presidential campaign. She has also testified before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and advises senior officials on intelligence, homeland security, and cybersecurity matters. Previously, Zegart served as codirector of Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, founding codirector of the Stanford Cyber Policy Program, and chief academic officer of the Hoover Institution. Before coming to Stanford, she was professor of public policy at UCLA and a McKinsey & Company consultant. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, the American Political Science Association’s Leonard D. White Dissertation Prize, and research grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Hewlett Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Zegart received an AB in East Asian studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard University and an MA and a PhD in political science from Stanford University. She serves on the board of directors of Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (KTOS) and the Capital Group.