Meghan O'Sullivan

Meghan L. O'Sullivan is the Jeane Kirkpatrick Professor of the Practice of International Affairs and Director of the Geopolitics of Energy Project at Harvard University's Kennedy School. Her expertise includes the geopolitics of energy, decision making in foreign policy, nation-building, counterinsurgency, and the Middle East. Between 2004 and 2007, she was special assistant to President George W. Bush and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan during the last two years of her tenure. She spent two years in Iraq, most recently in the fall of 2008 to help conclude the security agreement and strategic framework agreement between the United States and Iraq. Prior to this, Dr. O'Sullivan was senior director for strategic planning and southwest Asia in the NSC; political advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority administrator and deputy director for governance in Baghdad; chief advisor to the presidential envoy to the Northern Ireland peace process; and a fellow at the Brookings Institution. Her publications include Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism (2003). Dr. O'Sullivan is an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, a consultant to the National Intelligence Council, and a strategic advisor to John Hess, the Chairman and CEO of Hess Corporation, an American independent oil and gas company. She is also a foreign affairs columnist for Bloomberg View, a director on the board of TechnoServe, a non-profit organization bringing business solutions to help alleviate poverty, as well as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Women's Initiative at the George W. Bush Institute. Meghan is a member of the Council of Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Aspen Strategy Group. She is also an advisor to Mitt Romney, a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. president. Dr. O'Sullivan has been awarded the Defense Department's highest honor for civilians, the Distinguished Public Service Medal, and three times been awarded the State Department's Superior Honor Award. In 2008, Esquire Magazine voted her one of the most influential people of the century. She holds a doctorate in Politics and a masters in Economics from Oxford University and a B.A. from Georgetown University.

Selected Publications

Books

O'Sullivan, Meghan. Windfall: How the New Energy Abundance Upends Global Politics and Strengthens America’s Power. Simon & Schuster, 2017.

HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series

O'Sullivan, Meghan, Indra Overland, and David Sandalow. "The Geopolitics of Renewable Energy." HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series RWP17-027, June 2017.