Stephen Flynn
Founding Director, Global Resilience Institute/Professor of Political Science, Northeastern University
Education
Ph.D., 1991, International Relations, Tufts University
Dr. Stephen Flynn is professor of political science at Northeastern University with faculty affiliations in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs. He is also co-director of the George J. Kostas Research Institute for Homeland Security.
Dr. Flynn is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on critical infrastructure resilience, and transportation and supply chain security and resilience. From 2013-15, he led a two-year multi-university study funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and drafted the final report on “Bolstering Critical Infrastructure Resilience After Superstorm Sandy: Lessons for New York and the Nation.” Flynn has been appointed by Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson to serve as a member of the Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisory Council (HSSTAC). He is also a member of the National Security Advisory Board for Argonne National Laboratory. Additionally he holds research affiliations with the Wharton School’s Risk Management and Decision Processes Center, Columbia University’s National Disaster Preparedness Center, and the Homeland Security Studies and Analysis Institute. Dr. Flynn is also the principal for Stephen E. Flynn Associates LLC, where he provides independent advisory services on improving critical infrastructure security and resilience.
Before arriving at Northeastern in 2011, he served as president of the Center for National Policy and spent a decade as a senior fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2008 he served as the lead homeland security policy adviser for the Presidential Transition Team for President Barack Obama. Dr. Flynn was an active duty commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard for 20 years, including two tours as commanding officer at sea.
He holds the M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and B.S. from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Dr. Flynn has presented expert congressional testimony before the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on 28 occasions. He has delivered keynote addresses at more then one hundred international and national conferences and is a frequent media commentator with appearances on Meet the Press, 60 Minutes, The News Hour, The Today Show, the Charlie Rose Show, CNN and on National Public Radio. He has written two of the most widely-cited books on homeland security: The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation (Random House, 2007) and America the Vulnerable (HarperCollins, 2004). Five of his articles have been published in the prestigious journal, Foreign Affairs. Excerpts of his books have been featured in Time, as the cover story for U.S. News & World Report, and as the subject of two CNN documentaries.
