Stephen Flynn
Professor of Political Science, Northeastern University
At Brown’s Watson Institute. Steve has delivered keynote addresses on security and resilience at more than 100 international and national conferences.
Steve directs the university-wide, multi-disciplinary Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern that received the university’s Outstanding Innovation Award in 2018.
PAST EXPERIENCE: President, Center for National Policy (DC), Senior Fellow, National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations (NYC); Commander, U.S. Coast Guard (various)
Dr. Stephen Flynn is Founding Director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University where he leads a major university-wide research initiative to inform and advance societal resilience in the face of growing human-made and naturally-occurring turbulence. At Northeastern, he is a Professor of Political Science with affiliated faculty appointments in the College of Engineering and the School of Public Policy and Urban Affairs.
Professor Flynn has previously served as President of the Center for National Policy and spent a decade as a senior fellow for National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He has presented expert congressional testimony before the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives on 32 occasions. Prior to September 11, 2001, Dr. Flynn served as an expert advisor to U.S. Commission on National Security (Hart-Rudman Commission), and following the 9/11 attacks he was the executive director of a blue-ribbon Council on Foreign Relations homeland security task force, again co-led by former Senators Gary Hart and Warren Rudman.
He served as the principal advisor to the bipartisan Congressional Port Security Caucus, advised the George W. Bush Administration on maritime and homeland security issues, and after the November 2008 election of President Barack Obama, served as the lead policy advisor on homeland security as a part of the presidential transition team. From 2003-2010 he served as a member of the National Research Council’s Marine Board.
From 1982 – 2002, he served as commissioned officer in the U.S. Coast Guard for 20 years retiring at the rank of Commander. His service including two tours as commanding officer at sea, assignment to the White House Military Office during the George H.W. Bush administration, and as a director for Global Issues on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration.
He is co-author of the textbook, Critical Infrastructures Resilience: Policy and Engineering Principles (2018), and author of The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation (Random House, 2007), and the national bestseller, America the Vulnerable (HarperCollins 2004). In March 2022, he was appointed by the National Academies to chair a congressionally mandated committee to assess the adequacy of strategies to prevent, counter, and respond to Nuclear Terrorism. Prof. Flynn holds the M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and B.S. from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
WEBSITE LINKS:
https://cssh.northeastern.edu/faculty/stephen-flynn/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-flynn-0411614/
HIGHLIGHTS:
Appointment by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to chair a congressionally mandated committee to assess the adequacy of strategies to prevent, counter, and respond to Nuclear Terrorism
“Boatlift: An Untold Tale of 9/11 Resilience” - Executive Producer and writer of a short documentary where Tom Hanks narrates the epic story of the 9/11 boatlift that evacuated half a million people from the stricken piers and seawalls of Lower Manhattan.
US Department of Transportation Volpe Center, “Straight from the Source” Dr. Stephen Flynn on The Imperative and Opportunity to Invest in Resilient Infrastructure