Kiron Skinner

Kiron Skinner (born 1961) is an author, associate professor of international relations and political science at Carnegie Mellon University, and founding director of the Institute for Politics and Strategy.

She has co-authored two New York Times bestselling books on Ronald Reagan:In His Own Hand (2001) and Reagan, a Life in Letters (2003). She has been an adviser to multiple Republican Presidential campaigns and served as an advisor on a number of governmental national security panels.

Early life and education

Skinner was born in Chicago in 1961, but grew up in the California Bay Area. Skinner received an associate's degree in communications from Sacramento City College in 1979. She won the Harry S. Truman Scholarship for the State of California, which enabled her to move on to Spelman College, an historically black liberal arts college in Atlanta, where she received a bachelor's degree in political science. She then received MA and PhD degrees in political science and international relations from Harvard University. She was a student of future United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who advised her "People may oppose you, but when they realize you can hurt them, they'll join your side." She received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Molloy College in Long Island.

Academic career

At Carnegie Mellon University, she is founding director of the Institute for Politics and Strategy, part of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences; university adviser on national security policy; associate professor of international relations and political science; and director of the International Relations and Politics undergraduate major. In addition, Skinner is a Distinguished Fellow at CyLab, a research center in the College of Engineering, and holds courtesy faculty positions at CMU’s Heinz College and the Institute for Software Research, an academic department in the School of Computer Science. She has also taught political science courses at Hamilton College, Harvard University, and the University of California, Los Angeles. At Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Skinner is the W. Glenn Campbell Research Fellow and a member of the Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy.

Political career

Skinner served as a foreign policy surrogate for the George W. Bush Presidential re-election campaign in 2004. In 2010, she was appointed to the advisory board of the George W. Bush Oral History Project. She was a senior foreign policy adviser to Speaker Newt Gingrich during his presidential primary campaign from 2011 to 2012 and then to Mitt Romney's Presidential General Election campaign in the fall of 2012. In 2012, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett appointed Professor Skinner to the Governor’s Advisory Commission on African American Affairs.

Media

A frequent contributor of opinion essays, Skinner has written for CNN.com, Foreign Policy.com, National Review Online, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. She also regularly provides commentary on national and international television and radio programs.

Writings

• Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America with Annelise Anderson and Martin Anderson. Free Press, 2001. ISBN 0743219384
• Reagan: A Life In Letters with Annelise Anderson and Martin Anderson. Free Press, 2004. ISBN 0743219678
• Strategy of Campaigning: Lessons from Ronald Reagan and Boris Yeltsin with Serhiy Kudelia, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, and Condoleezza Rice. University of Michigan Press, 2007.
• Turning Points in Ending the Cold War, Hoover Institution Press, 2008.

External links

• Appearances on C-SPAN