Press Release
from Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School
Harvard Kennedy School Dean Douglas Elemendorf announced this week that Juliette Kayyem has been promoted to Senior Lecturer.
In government, academia, journalism, and the private sector, she is a national leader in America’s homeland security efforts.
“I join my colleagues in congratulating Juliette on this well-deserved honor,” said Belfer Center Director and former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. “She embodies the best of the Center’s practitioner-scholar model and her leadership on homeland security matters is second to none.”
“I am beyond thrilled by this honor, but mostly just humbled,” said Kayyem. “The Kennedy School and Belfer Center have been my home regardless of where my career has taken me. I am grateful to Ash and Eric, and Graham, for supporting all my efforts, including building programs and teaching in a field that is such an integral part of our nation’s security efforts.
Kayyem served as President Obama’s Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. There she played a pivotal role in major operations, including handling of the H1N1 pandemic and the BP Oil Spill response; she also organized major policy efforts in critical infrastructure protections and community resiliency. Before that, she was Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s homeland security advisor, guiding regional planning and the state’s first interoperability plan, climate change policies, and overseeing the National Guard.
Kayyem is the author of Security Mom, a memoir that explores the intersection, and commonalities, of her life in homeland security and her life as a mother. She is also the founder of Kayyem Solutions, LLC, providing strategic advice in resiliency planning, risk management, mega-event security, infrastructure protection, and cybersecurity. She appears frequently on CNN as their on-air national security analyst.
Kayyem has served as a member of the National Commission on Terrorism, a legal advisor to US Attorney General Janet Reno, and a trial attorney and counselor in the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department. She is the recipient of many government honors, including the Distinguished Public Service Award, the Coast Guard’s highest medal awarded to a civilian. In 2013, she was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for editorial columns in the Boston Globe focused on ending the Pentagon’s combat exclusion rule against women, a policy that was changed that year.
She is currently the CEO of Grip Mobility, a technology company looking to provide transparency in the rideshare industry. She is a board member of Mass Inc. and the Red Cross of MA. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Trilateral Commission. As a private advisor, she co-authored for the Department of Homeland Security its strategic assessment of critical infrastructure and cyber security vulnerabilities.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and the mother of three children, she is married to First Circuit Court of Appeals Judge David Barron.