Jessica Stern
Research Professor, Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies.
2023, 2026
Jessica Stern is a Research Professor at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies. Stern has taught courses on counter-terrorism for over 20 years – at Boston University, Harvard, and CIA University. She is a Member of a National Academy of Sciences Committee on Preventing Nuclear Terrorism, the Homeland Security Experts Group and a Senior Fellow at both Harvard’s School of Public Health and the Center for Naval Analyses. Her work has been funded by MacArthur Foundation, National Science Foundation, DHS, NATO, and DOD, among others. Stern is coauthor with J.M. Berger of ISIS: The State of Terror, and the author of My War Criminal: Personal Encounters with an Architect of Genocide, Denial: A Memoir of Terror, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, and The Ultimate Terrorists. Stern served on President Clinton’s National Security Council Staff in 1994-95. She was included among seven “thinkers” in Time Magazine’s 2001 series profiling 100 innovators. She was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in 2009, a World Economic Forum Fellow from 2002-2004, an International Affairs Fellow in 1994, and elected to Sigma Xi, an engineering honors society, in 1986. Stern advises a number of government agencies on issues related to terrorism and prevention of targeted violence. She has a bachelor’s degree from Barnard College in chemistry, a master’s degree from MIT in technology policy, and a doctorate from Harvard University in public policy. She is a 2016 graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Psychoanalysis.
At the Summit
The Summit offers a unique opportunity to confront the corrosive influence of bigotry and hatred in our society. In order for us to address these challenges, we first must acknowledge their painful and destructive impact in our communities and in our country. I am grateful to serve as a Global Advisor to this timely and powerful initiative.
