Kiron Skinner, Ph.D

Kiron Skinner was born in Chicago in 1961 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She began her academic journey by earning an associate degree in communications from Sacramento City College in 1979. Her academic achievements continued with a bachelor’s degree in political science from Spelman College, where she was a Harry S. Truman Scholarship recipient for the State of California. She then pursued advanced degrees, obtaining both an MA and a PhD in political science and international relations from Harvard University. At Harvard, she studied under Condoleezza Rice, who would later become United States Secretary of State. Her early career also included teaching political science courses at institutions such as Hamilton College, Harvard University, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Skinner has held significant academic and governmental positions throughout her career. She served as the Taube Professor for International Relations and Politics at Carnegie Mellon University, where she founded and directed several centers and institutes, including the Grand Strategy Program and the Carnegie Mellon University Washington Semester Program. Her government service included roles on the US Department of Defense’s Defense Policy Board, the Defense Business Board, and the Chief of Naval Operations’ Executive Panel, where she advised on the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. From 2012 to 2015, she contributed to Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett’s Advisory Commission on African American Affairs. Her expertise in cybersecurity led her to help create interdisciplinary degrees at Carnegie Mellon and act as a convener for the National Security Agency and US Cyber Command. She is also an award-winning and best-selling author, with her coauthored books on Ronald Reagan, including “Reagan, In His Own Hand” (2001) and “Reagan, A Life in Letters” (2003), both becoming New York Times best sellers.

From September 2018 to August 2019, Skinner served as Director of the Office of Policy Planning and as Senior Policy Adviser to the US Secretary of State. In this role, she reengaged the Department of State in red-team exercises, strengthened ties between the State and Defense Departments, initiated discussions on China policy, and fostered transatlantic partnerships through strategic dialogues, including the first Policy Planners Summit for NATO. She played a key role in the creation of the Commission on Unalienable Rights and the rechartering of the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. Currently, she is the Taube Family Chair of International Relations and Politics at Pepperdine School of Public Policy, and the founding director of the Grand Strategy Program and the Institute for Diplomacy, Security, and Innovation. She is also a W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior advisor to the president of the Heritage Foundation. She is a lifetime director on the board of the Atlantic Council and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.