Amy Zegart is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, where she co-directs the Center for International Security and Cooperation. She is also professor of political science, by courtesy, and a contributing editor to The Atlantic.

Before coming to Stanford in 2011, Zegart served as professor of public policy at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs and spent several years as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.

Her research interests focus on U.S. intelligence challenges, cyber security, grand strategy, and American foreign policy. She has authored several books, including Flawed by Design: The Evolution of the CIA, JCS, and NSC, which won the highest national dissertation award in political science, and Spying Blind: The CIA, the FBI, and the Origins of 9/11, which won the National Academy of Public Administration’s Brownlow Book Award.

She is currently writing a book with Condoleezza Rice about how business leaders can manage political risk (Political Risk, Twelve Books, 2018) based on a course they have taught together for the past several years at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Zegart was featured by the National Journal as one of the ten most influential experts in intelligence reform. She served on the Clinton administration's National Security Council staff and as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush-Cheney 2000 presidential campaign. She has also testified before Congress, provided training to the Marine Corps, and advised officials on intelligence and homeland security matters. Her commentary has been featured on national television and radio shows and in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere.

A former Fulbright scholar, Zegart received an AB in East Asian studies magna cum laude from Harvard University and an MA and PhD in political science from Stanford University. She grew up in Louisville, Kentucky.