Jessica Stern

Jessica Stern is one of the foremost experts on terrorism. She serves on the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law. In 2009, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work on trauma and violence. Jessica is a member of the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. She was named a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, fellow of the World Economic Forum, and a Harvard MacArthur Fellow.

She has authored TERROR IN THE NAME OF GOD: Why Religious Militants Kill, selected by the New York Times as a notable book of the year; THE ULTIMATE TERRORISTS; and numerous articles on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. She served on President Clinton’s National Security Council Staff in 1994–95 (read a May 1995 letter and July 1995 letter from the President and this note from the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs expressing their gratitude for her work and contribution).

Jessica was included in Time magazine’s series profiling 100 people with bold ideas. The film, “The Peacemaker”, with Nicole Kidman and George Clooney, was based on a fictional version of Jessica’s work at the National Security Council. Her new book, DENIAL: A Memoir of Terror, is now available, published by Ecco, a HarperCollins imprint. She lives in Cambridge, MA.