2011 21st Century Leader Award Recipient
Marisa L. Porges is currently a Research Fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfar Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard Universtiy.
Prior to this, Ms. Porges was a Ph.D. candidate in War Studies at King’s College London. Her dissertation focused on the use of deradicalization as a counterterrorism strategy. Ms. Porges was named to the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe's (SACEUR) Next Generation Advisory Panel. Consisting of a group of young scholars, professionals, and non-government leaders, the panel meets with the SACEUR to discuss and provide input on key national security issues. She is also an associate fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, and has published widely in major international publications and appeared on, among others, CNN and Al-Jazeera.
Ms. Porges is a commissioned naval flight officer, having served on active duty flying the Navy’s EA-6B Prowler, and been deployed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln during Operation Unified Assistance. Ms. Porges has also served as a civilian counterterrorism policy adviser at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where she was a member of General Petraeus’s Central Command Assessment Team, and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy as an adviser in the Office of Detainee Affairs. Most recently, she was an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, where she studied counterterrorism strategies and conducted fieldwork in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Afghanistan, Singapore and Indonesia.
Ms. Porges received an AB in geophysics from Harvard University and an MSc from the London School of Economics.
Publications and Media Hits:
Reform School for Radicals, July-August 2011 Issue of The American Interest Online
An International Coalition for Guantanamo, February 25, 2011, The Washington Post
Protest Have al-Qaeda Sidelined, February 23, 2011, Philly.com
'We Cannot Deal With These People': Wikileaks Shows True Feelings on Guantanamo, November 30, 2010, The Christian Science Monitor
Saving Yemen: Is Counterterrorism Enough?, November 16, 2010, Foreign Affairs
Terrorists Capitalize on Pakistan's Floods, August 18, 2010, Wall Street Journal
Getting Deradicalization Right, May/June 2010, Foreign Affairs
Deradicalisation, the Yemeni Way, April-May 2010, Survival: Global Politics and Strategy
