PERSON: Jane Harman

Freedom House

Chair of the Board of Trustees

Jane Harman is a former nine-term congresswoman from California and former ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, a position she held for four years after 9/11. She recently completed a decade at the nonpartisan Wilson Center as its first female president and CEO, where she is now president emerita and distinguished fellow. Harman is recognized as a national expert at the nexus of security and public policy issues and has received numerous awards for distinguished service. She has served on advisory boards for the CIA, the Director of National Intelligence, and the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and State. Harman is currently a member of the NASA Advisory Council, the Homeland Security Advisory Council, the Aspen Strategy Group, the National Council on Election Integrity, the advisory board of the Munich Security Conference, the Eisenhower Fellowships, the Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission and co-chairs the Homeland Security Experts Group with former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. In 2022, she was named a presidential scholar-in-residence at the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. She is also a 2022 Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School. Harman’s book, “Insanity Defense: Why Our Failure to Confront Hard National Security Problems Makes Us Less Safe,” was published by St. Martin’s Press in 2021.<br> <br> [Https://freedomhouse.org/about-us/board-and-leadership/board-trustees-member-biographies]