Jennifer Kavanagh
Director and a Senior Fellow of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities
Dr Jennifer Kavanagh is a Director and a Senior Fellow of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities. Her research focuses on US military strategy and force structure, the defence industrial base, and US military interventions. Previously, Dr Kavanagh was a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where she was Director of RAND’s Army strategy program. She is also an affiliate of Brown University’s Cost of War Project. Her work has been published in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Journal of Conflict Resolution, The Washington Quarterly, Lawfare, and War on the Rocks, among other outlets. She received her BA at Harvard University and PhD in political science at University of Michigan.
Updated: March 5, 2026