Kelleher to Participate in State Department-led Women's Initiative

October 26, 2011

Watson Institute Senior Fellow Catherine McArdle Kelleher has been selected to attend the launch of the Women in Public Service Project and Colloquium in December 2011 at the US Department of State. December’s colloquium is expected to bring together women leaders from around the world. The inaugural event, featuring global policymakers, scholars, public officials, and innovative thinkers, will seek to create the foundation for training institutes that are replicable and sustainable around the globe as part of the Women in Public Service initiative.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the initiative in March 2011, at the Women in the World Stories and Solutions Summit. Clinton said the initiative – a partnership among the US State Department and the “Seven Sisters” colleges – will work to promote the “next generation of women leaders who will invest in their countries and communities, provide leadership for their governments and societies, and help change the way global solutions are developed.”

Kelleher, who earned her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is professor emeritus of strategic research at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. She is the founder of the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland and a former senior fellow of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution. Keller also directed the Aspen Institute in Berlin and was the first president of Women in International Security.

Keller has served the US government in various capacities. Under the Clinton administration, she worked as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia and as the secretary of defense's representative to NATO in Brussels. She was also on President Carter's National Security Council staff.

This invitation represents just the latest decoration for Kelleher, who has been widely celebrated for her public service. In 2005, she completed 15 years of service as vice chair of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academies of Sciences and directed annual policy dialogues with China, Russia, and India. In 2007, she became the second-ever recipient of the Joseph J. Kruzel Memorial Award for Public Service from the International Security Studies and Arms Control section of American Political Science Association, and she was named to the Naval Studies Board of the National Academies of Sciences.  In 2009, the American Political Science Association honored her with its Hubert H. Humphrey Award in recognition of notable public service by a political scientist.

At the Watson Institute, Kelleher’s Dialogue among Americans, Russians, and Europeans (DARE) project has brought policymakers and academics together to discuss cooperation on security issues.

By Watson Institute Student Rapporteur Lauren Fedor ‘12