Kiron K. Skinner is the W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is a member of three Hoover Institution projects: the Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy; the working group on the Role of Military History in Contemporary Conflict; and the Arctic Security Initiative. At Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), she is founding director of the Center for International Relations and Politics; founding director of the Institute for Strategic Analysis; director of the Institute for Politics and Strategy, a new academic unit in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences; director of the Carnegie Mellon University Washington Semester Program; and associate professor (tenured) of international relations and political science. She has also taught political science courses at Hamilton College, Harvard University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Her areas of expertise are international relations, international security, US foreign policy, and political strategy.

Professor Skinner’s government service includes membership on the US Defense Department’s Defense Policy Board as an adviser on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars (2001–07);  the Eisenhower Commission’s Legacy Committee of historians (2002-03); the Chief of Naval Operations’ (CNO) Executive Panel (2004–present); the National Academies’ Committee on Behavioral and Social Science Research to Improve Intelligence Analysis for National Security (2009–11); and the National Security Education Board (2004–11). In 2010, Skinner was appointed to the advisory board of the George W. Bush Oral History Project.

Professor Skinner holds MA and PhD degrees in political science and international relations from Harvard University and undergraduate degrees from Spelman College and Sacramento City College. She received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Molloy College, Long Island.