Elly Rostoum is the Administrative Director of the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies, and an Adjunct Lecturer at Johns Hopkins SAIS. She was formerly the Associate Director of the SAIS China Global Research Center. Elly is a former U.S. intelligence analyst, and National Security Council staffer at the White House. She is a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow in U.S. Grand Strategy.
Elly’s research examines American national security vulnerabilities of foreign direct investment, with a focus on foundational and emerging technologies in the AI, finance, biotech, and IoT sectors. Elly is an expert on CFIUS governance, and she specializes regionally on China and the Middle East. Methodologically, Elly specializes in forecasting, scenario planning, commodity modeling, and crisis simulation gaming. She has conducted field research (and lived for many years) throughout Europe and the Middle East. Elly speaks five languages, and 22 dialects.
Prior to academia and public service, Elly began her career in management consulting and advisory research, forecasting oil prices and consulting for C-suite executives in the energy sector. She has published extensively on topics covering the intersection of energy, geopolitics, and policy, including above-ground risk management, global investment trends analysis, energy R&D spending, and the electrification of the global drivetrain. Elly previously served as a member of the MIT Climate Change Conversation Committee, and she has led a pioneering U.S. State Department funded public diplomacy experiential program between American and Arab elected officials in the Middle East and North Africa.
As a graduate student, Elly was a White House Intern with the Office of Science and Technology Policy, assisting on issues ranging from the cybersecurity National Action Plan, climate change as a national security issue, precision medicine, and diversity inclusion in STEM fields. She has also worked with the office of the White House Chief Technology Officer on a joint White House-Silicon Valley Artificial Intelligence initiative. Elly has also been awarded the Central Intelligence Agency’s graduate fellowship in energy markets, and she was formerly a fellow with the U.S. Department of Energy, covering electric systems and grid flexibility issues.
Elly holds a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Bates College, a Master’s degree in Liberal Arts in Government from Harvard University, a Certificate in Decision Analysis and Risk Management from Stanford University, and she is currently finishing her PhD in Global Governance and Human Security from the University of Massachusetts.
Spring 2015
This course examines the American and the Chinese conceptualizations of national security, and their implications on how each nation defines their grand strategies vis-à-vis one another. The first part of the course takes a deep look at the Chinese economic statecraft model, with a specific focus on how the state instrumentalizes commercial actors and foreign direct investment (FDI). Through case studies and guest lectures, the course explores the American response via the work of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). The course will trace CFIUS’ history, situating its role and impact within the interagency process, and diagnosing how this powerful body has accommodated emerging geopolitical threats. The second part of the course considers CFIUS’ role in relation to both research and development and foreign direct investment flows from key competitors. We will look specifically at Chinese FDI and foundational and critical technologies in telecom, biotech, computing, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and the Internet of Things.
Spring 2015
The National Security and Emerging Technology Practicum is an innovative program that gives students extensive, in-depth, real world experience working with external client organizations on projects addressing cybersecurity, mis/disinformation, artificial intelligence, and national security and geopolitical tensions of foreign direct investment in the technology sector. The practicum provides quality research and analysis to the client, while students develop their research advisory skills and apply concepts learned in the classroom to critical problems. This course is by application only.