Professor Audrey Kurth Cronin is Director of the Carnegie Mellon Institute for Strategy and Technology (CMIST) and Trustees Professor of Security and Technology. A leading expert on emerging technology and international security, her research explores how widely available, off-the-shelf tools are reshaping modern conflict. In her award-winning book Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists (Oxford, 2020), she shows that 21st-century threats stem not only from elite labs or state arsenals, but also from commercial technologies in the hands of individuals and networks. From robotics to AI to biotechnology, Cronin shows how accessible innovation is empowering non-state actors in ways that traditional security frameworks often fail to anticipate.

Cronin is also author of the widely cited How Terrorism Ends: Understanding the Decline and Demise of Terrorist Campaigns (Princeton, 2009), which The New Yorker called a “landmark study.” Her recent Foreign Affairs piece, “How Hamas Ends,” draws on her analysis of over 450 terrorist groups to propose a counterterrorism strategy grounded in organizational decline.

A former Marshall Scholar, she holds a DPhil from Oxford and has served in a range of academic and U.S. policy roles, including at Oxford University, the Congressional Research Service, the National War College, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy. She frequently advises U.S. and international business and security leaders on technology and strategy.