Nora Bensahel

Dr. Nora Bensahel is a Professor of Practice at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and a Contributing Editor and Columnist for War on the Rocks. She is a renowned expert on U.S. defense policy, military operations, and the future of war. She is the co-author of the recently-published book Adaptation Under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime.

Before joining SAIS, Dr. Bensahel was a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the School of International Service at American University and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Prior to that, she was a senior fellow and co-director of the Responsible Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security. Her early career included over eleven years at the RAND Corporation, where she rose to the position of senior political scientist. She also spent more than a decade as an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, where she taught graduate classes and received the Alumni Leadership Council Teaching Award.  

Dr. Bensahel received her Ph.D. and M.A. degrees from the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, and her B.A. magna cum laude from Cornell University. While at Stanford, she worked as a research assistant for former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry. She previously served on the Secretary of Defense’s Reserve Forces Policy Board, the Executive Board of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security (LCWINS) and the President’s Council on Cornell Women.