Lauren Zabierek to Head Cyber Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center

Lauren Zabierek has been named Executive Director of the Cyber Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. A military veteran, former civilian intelligence analyst, and a Gold Star Sister, she joins the Belfer Center following her graduation in 2019 from Harvard Kennedy School’s mid-career Master in Public Administration program. 

“We are so pleased to have Lauren Zabierek running the Cyber Project,” said Center Co-Director Eric Rosenbach, a former “cyber czar” for the U.S. Department of Defense. “From her service as an intelligence officer and her teaching in the classroom to her work in the private-sector, Lauren brings a proven record of cyber leadership and policy expertise to guide the Center’s research in this critical arena.”

“I am honored to join the Belfer Center in this prestigious role,” Zabierek said. “Cybersecurity is national security, and I am excited to work with policymakers, technologists, practitioners, and academics to help shape national and international policy in this critical space. I am also proud to be among the women assuming director roles in the cyber arena at the Center.”

Before her graduate work at the Kennedy School, Zabierek served as an intelligence officer in the United States Air Force and completed three war-zone deployments as a civilian intelligence analyst with the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) assigned to the Office of Counterterrorism. Throughout her six years in this office, she became a subject matter expert on Activity Based Intelligence (ABI) and served as an adjunct professor in ABI at the NGA college. She later joined a cybersecurity startup, Recorded Future, where she fused intelligence methodologies with cybersecurity technologies to help customers improve their cyber posture.

As a Gold Star sister, she supports families of the fallen and volunteers as a mentor with the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS).