Whitney M. McNamara

Whitney McNamara is an Associate Vice President at Beacon Global Strategies where she supports its National Security and Technology practice.

She previously led the Science and Technology portfolio of the Department of Defense's Defense Innovation Board (DIB), whose mission is to provide the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary of Defense, and other senior leaders across the Department with independent advice and recommendations on emerging technologies and innovative approaches that DoD should adopt to ensure U.S. technological and military dominance. Before that, she served in the Department's Chief information Office as an emerging technologies policy subject matter expert. Prior to that, she was a Senior Analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, focusing on emerging technologies, future operating concepts, and informationized warfare in the context of long term technological and military competition.

Ms. McNamara is a former National Security Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center and worked in the Political-Military Bureau at the Department of State and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Middle East Policy. She received her M.A. in Strategic Studies and International Economics from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies where she was a Bradley Fellow and a Presidential Management Fellowship Finalist. Prior to that, she spent four years working in the Middle East as a project manager supporting capacity building in local civil society organizations throughout the Arab Spring. She has written for or been quoted in the Washington Post, Cipher Brief, Real Clear Defense, Breaking Defense, C4ISRNET, Air Force Magazine, The Center for International Maritime Security, Aspen Review, The National Interest, Al-Monitor, and Al Arabiya.