Dr. Kathleen L. Kiernan

Dr. Kathleen L. Kiernan is among the top law enforcement, intelligence and security authorities in the world. Dr. Kathleen L. Kiernan is a 29-year veteran of Federal Law Enforcement , and previously served as the Assistant Director for the Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) where she was responsible for the design and implementation of an intelligence-led organizational strategy to mine and disseminate data related to explosives, firearms and illegal tobacco diversion, the traditional and non-traditional tools of terrorism.

Dr. Kiernan has been involved with the Intelligence Community for over a decade, and served as the ATF representative to the Counterterrorism Center (CTC) at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1993-1995. She is a Council Vice President for ASIS International with oversight of the Critical Infrastructure Working Group (CIWG); she chairs the Domestic Intelligence Council (DCI) for Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) and she is the former Chair of the DCI’s Law Enforcement Working Group (LEWG), an initiative designed to bridge the communities of intelligence and law enforcement.

Dr. Kiernan is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) Terrorism subcommittee, an Intelligence Fellow and graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Executive Institute, Member of the Board of Regents of the Potomac Institute, the Director of National Intelligence’s (DNI) Summer Hard Problems Workshop (SHARP) (2006/7), and Chairman for 2008 of the National InfraGard Program, an FBI affiliated public private-partnership with over 30,000 volunteer members with expertise in all 18 critical infrastructures and key resources. She has led training programs on critical incident management and explosives response protocol on a worldwide basis. Dr. Kiernan led a nationwide Intelligence Community project involving the active interdiction of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) throughout the law enforcement and public safety communities, and led a team in the Quadrennial Intelligence Community Review. Dr. Kiernan is a Special Advisor to the Director of the Combating Terrorism Task Force in the Department of Defense and a faculty member at the Center for Defense and Security at the Naval Postgraduate School.

Dr. Kiernan has a Doctorate in Education from Northern Illinois University (with highest honors) and a Masters of Science degree in Strategic Intelligence from the Joint Military Intelligence College in Washington, DC. She also holds a Masters of Arts degree in International Transactions from George Mason University in Virginia. In 2001, Dr. Kiernan was recognized as an outstanding scholar by Northern Illinois University and as an outstanding alumnus in 2005. She is a Senior Fellow for the George Washington University Homeland Security Policy Institute, and a faculty member at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Kiernan is a member of the Army Science Board where she led a panel exploring the transition of law enforcement training and technology to the war fighter.