Carnegie Mellon Institute for Security and Technology has hired a leading expert on cybersecurity, terrorism and technology as founding director.
Carnegie Mellon University said the appointment of Audrey Kurth Cronin follows an international search and that Cronin has additionally been named trustees professor of security and technology.
Cronin, formerly of American University in Washington, D.C., has held senior positions in academia and in U.S. policy.
“The world today continues to grapple with terrorism, cybersecurity threats and renewed great-power competition,” Provost James H. Garrett Jr., who led the search committee, said in a prepared statement. “Carnegie Mellon University is poised to address these critical challenges that face defense, intelligence and foreign affairs professionals. Audrey Kurth Cronin possesses the vision and credentials to lead the institute’s expanding team of international relations experts and political scientists. Their nonpartisan research — combined with expertise from across our university — will deepen and broaden public understanding of developing technologies and security issues.”
CMIST, formerly known as the Institute for Politics and Strategy, will draw upon, highlight and connect the security-related technological innovations already underway throughout CMU with cross-cutting analyses of their ethical, social, political and economic impacts.
CMIST’s administrative home will be in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Science.
“Our goal is to focus on building cross-disciplinary bridges — to reduce risks, maximize benefits and make our brilliant technologies a force for good in the world,” Cronin said in a prepared statement.
She founded and directed the Center for Security, Innovation and New Technology in Washington, D.C. She also gained accreditation, founded and ran the International Security graduate program at George Mason University.
Cronin has served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy and frequently advises at senior levels. She chaired the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Terrorism and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Cronin's most recent book, “Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists,” published in 2020, analyzes emerging technologies and devises a new framework for 21st century military innovation.
