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Amy Zegart (born 1967) is an American academic. She is the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the
Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace; abbreviated as Hoover) is an American public policy think tank and research institution that promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, an ...
. She is also a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies (FSI), professor of political science (by courtesy) at Stanford University, and a contributing writer to
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
. From 2013 to 2018, she served as co-director of the Freeman Spogli Institute’s
Center for International Security and Cooperation Stanford University has many centers and institutes dedicated to the study of various specific topics. These centers and institutes may be within a department, within a school but across departments, an independent laboratory, institute or center ...
(CISAC) and founder and co-director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Program.


Early life

Zegart was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1967. She received an
A.B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...
in East Asian Studies '' magna cum laude'' from
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
. She then earned a Ph.D in
Political Science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...
at Stanford University, where she studied under Condoleezza Rice.Amy Zegart
UCLA School of Public Affairs
While in graduate school, she spent time on President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
's National Security Council staff.


Career

Shortly after graduating from Harvard, Zegart moved to Hong Kong, where she continued studying East Asia for a year on a Fulbright Scholarship. Following this, she began work as an associate with McKinsey & Company, where she advised ''Fortune'' 100 companies on strategy and organizational effectiveness. Zegart then attended graduate school. After completing her Ph.D., she served as professor of public policy at the
UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs The UCLA Meyer and Renee Luskin School of Public Affairs, commonly known as the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, is the public affairs/public service graduate school at the University of California, Los Angeles. The school consists of three ...
and as a fellow at the Burkle Center for International Relations. In 2011, Zegart moved to Stanford University. Zegart is a leading national expert on the
United States Intelligence Community United may refer to: Places * United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community Arts and entertainment Films * ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film * ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...
and national security policy. She has written four books on the topic: ''Flawed By Design'', which chronicled the evolution of the relationship between the
United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national sec ...
, the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
, and the National Security Council; ''Spying Blind'', which examined U.S. intelligence agencies in the period preceding the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...
in 2001; ''Eyes on Spies'', which examined the weaknesses of U.S. intelligence oversight; and ''Spies, Lies, and Algorithms'', which examined espionage in the digital age. Zegart currently serves as a member of the board of directors of
Kratos Defense & Security Solutions Kratos Defense & Security Solutions, Inc, (), headquartered in San Diego, California, is an American technology company specializing in directed-energy weapons, unmanned systems, satellite communications, cyber security/warfare, microwave electro ...
, a military contractor and weapons manufacturer that received a $29m government contract in 2016 to produce
directed-energy weapon A directed-energy weapon (DEW) is a ranged weapon that damages its target with highly focused energy without a solid projectile, including lasers, microwaves, particle beams, and sound beams. Potential applications of this technology include w ...
systems. She currently resides in
Palo Alto Palo Alto (; Spanish for "tall stick") is a charter city in the northwestern corner of Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. The city was es ...
,
California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
, and is married to a retired screenwriter.


Publications

* ''Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC'', Stanford University Press, 1999. * ''Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11'', Princeton University Press, 2007. * ''Eyes on Spies: Congress and the United States Intelligence Community'', Hoover Institution Press, 2011. * * "Spies, Lies, and Algorithms," ''Foreign Affairs'', May/June 2019. * * "Intelligence Isn't Just for Governments Anymore," ''Foreign Affairs'', November 2020. * "Spies Like Us," ''Foreign Affairs'', July/August 2021. * ''Spies, Lies, and Algorithms: The History and Future of American Intelligence'', Princeton University Press, 2022.


References


External links

*
Amy Zegart Biography
''The New York Times''. Accessed June 2012.

discusses the future of the CIA – NPR ''Weekend Edition'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Zegart, Amy Living people 1967 births Harvard College alumni Stanford University alumni UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs faculty Hoover Institution people People from Louisville, Kentucky