Mailing address
Littauer P-16
79 John F. Kennedy Street
Mailbox 53
Cambridge, MA, 02138
Juliette Kayyem
Lecturer in Public Policy
Member of the Board, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Contact:
Telephone: 617-496-6743
Fax: 617-495-8963
Email: juliette.kayyem@gmail.com
Experience
Juliette N. Kayyem, the national security and foreign policy columnist for the Boston Globe and on the faculty at the Harvard Kennedy School, has spent nearly fifteen years in counterterrorism, homeland security, and emergency management arena. She most recently served for President Barack Obama as Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As Assistant Secretary, Ms. Kayyem was responsible for coordinated and consistent planning between the Department and all of its state, local, tribal, and territorial partners on issues as varied as immigration, intelligence sharing, military affairs, border security, and the response to operational events such as H1N1 influenza outbreak, the December 25th attempted terrorist attack, the Haiti earthquake, and the BP oil spill. In this capacity, she also served as the co-chair of congressionally mandated Preparedness Task Force and a member of President Obama's Task Force on Puerto Rico and the Defense Department's Council or Governors. She also managed the security efforts surrounding major sporting events, including the Chicago Olympic bid, the Vancouver Olympics, the Caribbean Games, and the World Equestrian Games. She was the most senior Arab-American female appointee in the Obama Administration
In the immediate aftermath of the BP oil spill, Ms. Kayyem was tasked to direct interagency and intergovernmental affairs for the National Incident Command, overseeing a diverse interagency and interdisciplinary staff for the White House and DHS to address unprecedented issues in the response, including public safety, public engagement, environmental remediation, and legal compliance. For her work, she received the Coast Guard's highest civilian honor.
Before joining the Obama Administration, she served as Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's homeland security advisor, overseeing the National Guard, the commonwealth's strategic security planning, and the distribution of homeland security funds consistent with the Governor's priorities. Prior to that, she was a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School, serving also as co-chair of the Dubai Initiative and as Executive Director of the School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. A lawyer by training, she began her legal career in 1995 at the Department of Justice, ultimately serving as an advisor to then Attorney General Janet Reno until 1999.
Ms. Kayyem was a congressional appointee to the National Commission on Terrorism which, in early summer 2001, highlighted major gaps in planning and preparation for a possible terrorist attack. She is the co-author of the critically acclaimed Preserving Liberty in an Age of Terror (2005, with Phil Heymann) as well as the author and editor of numerous books and articles, including First to Arrive: State and Local Responses to Terrorism (2003). She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Until she re-entered public service, Ms. Kayyem served as an on air analyst for NBC and MSNBC News.
Named a CNN/Fortune Magazine's People to Watch, her column is distributed through the New York Times wire service. A graduate of Harvard College and Law School, she is married to David Barron, a Harvard Law Professor, and has three children.
AP Photo
May 14, 2012
"A Crackdown Avoided"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"These groups changed the way immigration is discussed in a state that's about as conservative as it gets. Rhetoric about civil rights or racial profiling only goes so far here. Business climate, agricultural interests, and fewer government mandates — that's the language that gained traction."
May 10, 2012
"A Plot Foiled, but a US Agency Rift Exposed"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The CIA disrupted this latest plot, then got much of the attention. It utilized long-established and very complicated intelligence tactics. Unfortunately, the extent of our infiltration of Al Qaeda has now been exposed. The leaks clearly came from someone intimately involved with the operation; the details are too exacting."
AP Photo
May 7, 2012
"A Tragedy or Merely Tragic?"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"It is a testament to the human rights community that its relevance in global affairs may demand a new vernacular. Major atrocities, and ethnic genocide, are different in scope and magnitude from the plight of a single man. Those familiar slogans — the whole world is watching — are at risk of overuse, and therefore irrelevance, when applied to all things constituting a tragedy and the merely tragic. The Chen case is complicated, but it isn't Bosnia."
AP Photo
May 3, 2012
"Al Qaeda Loses Its Way"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Today, the Jordanians who have any favorable feelings about Al Qaeda are a paltry 13 percent. By 2006, Al Qaeda began to stray from its anti-Western foundations and focus its wrath on moderate Muslim citizens there and elsewhere. The Jordanians began to turn on bin Laden, and have been turning ever since. Eventually, the United States wound down its operations in Iraq and adopted a less confrontational posture in the Middle East."
April 30, 2012
"A Revolution: Women Fight in Marines"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The course of history, and the reality of war, are headed towards full inclusion of women into combat roles. The Pentagon's liberalization of some of the combat rules earlier this year — and the promise of further reviews as evidenced in the changes this week — were an acknowledgment that antiquated and inconsistent combat regulations are becoming more difficult to defend in modern warfare."
April 26, 2012
"Saudi Arabia's Un-Olympic Spirit"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Isolation from the games would have tremendous impact in a country well aware that public opinion is growing exceptionally suspicious of Arab monarchs. It may have domestic rules against women's rights, but to play in the games it should live up to universal, and IOC, standards."
April 23, 2012
"The Military's Persistent Gender Divide"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Changing the culture of the military toward women requires more than amending the sexual assault procedures. It means changing the combat exclusion rules. All the good words about inclusiveness and gender protection mask a more fundamental division: Women are underrepresented in the highest ranks not because of pervasive sexual assault, but because they are still formally excluded from the most honored role of all, that of combat soldier."
April 16, 2012
"This is Not a Test"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"...[P]eople traveled miles away, believing they had only a few hours before water struck. That belief, stemming from the memory of 2004, was what would have saved the most lives. Indonesians remember one fact: Those who walked away from the water in 2004 survived. Then, whole villages were saved because the memory of a 1907 tsunami had been shared from generation to generation; when the earth moves, so will the oceans. Indeed, more recently built villages, with new immigrants, were completely eviscerated in 2004 because they had no historical sense of what was to come."
AP Photo
April 12, 2012
"Ozzie Guillen: Why This Controversy, Now?"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"The love-for-Castro comment aside, Guillen's whole interview, and his apology, say more about his utter bewilderment that the powerful United States has never been able to get past Fidel Castro and focus on strategic interests with a nation so close by."
AP Photo
April 9, 2012
"The Self-destruction of Arizona"
Op-Ed, Boston Globe
By Juliette Kayyem, Lecturer in Public Policy
"Later this week the heads of state and government of 34 nations in this hemisphere will meet in Cartagena, Colombia, at the sixth Summit of the Americas. Obama will be there, and all our American brethren, minus Cuba and Ecuador, will too. They will talk about their economies, energy supplies, trade agreements, and commerce. They will talk about drugs, of course, and the insatiable US appetite for them. But they will not be talking about whether classes in Hispanic studies are inherently anti-Anglo."
