Tamara Klajn is a PhD Candidate in Security Studies. Her research interests include grand strategy, U.S. foreign policy, and great power politics. Her dissertation, "Far From Foregone: Declinism and Renewal in Postwar America," focuses on prior debates around U.S. relative decline and their implications for assessments of national power.  

Until January 2017, Tamara served as Chief of Staff for Secretary John Kerry’s Policy Planning Staff, managing a 30-person team of top scholars, regional experts, and senior members of the military and intelligence community responsible for providing independent analysis and recommendations directly to the Secretary of State. She previously served as the Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs where she led strategic initiatives, including the inaugural U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit in 2014. Prior to her time at the State Department, she was a Professional Staff Member with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, focusing on oversight of global counterterrorism policy, sub-Saharan Africa, public diplomacy, and the Peace Corps. She also served in the Department of Defense in a number of capacities, including: as a member of General Stanley McChrystal’s Strategic Advisory Group in Afghanistan; in the Joint Staff’s Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell; in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Plans; as a detailee to the State Department’s Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan; and as Special Assistant to the Deputy Comptroller.  

Prior to her time in government, Tamara worked in Somalia for the Academy for Peace and Development and in Ghana for the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre. She also worked as a Researcher for the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, conducting the first governance appraisal of Somaliland. Tamara also holds an M.P.P. from the Harvard Kennedy School and an A.B. in History and Science from Harvard College. She is currently a non-resident fellow in New America’s International Security Program.