MWI Adjunct Scholar
Heidi A. Urben is an Adjunct Associate Professor for the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. She will retire from the US Army later this year after a twenty-three-year career, culminating as commander of the Army’s largest military intelligence brigade. Dr. Urben’s research interests include civil-military relations, public opinion, political behavior, and national security strategy.
A career military intelligence officer, her previous positions in the US Army include: Vice Deputy Director of Current Analysis and Warning in the Joint Staff Directorate for Intelligence; Deputy Director for Intelligence in the Joint Staff’s National Military Command Center; Battalion Commander for a military intelligence battalion in Hawaii; Assistant Professor of American Politics, Policy, and Strategy in the Department of Social Sciences at the US Military Academy at West Point; operations officer and executive officer for a counterintelligence battalion; Military Aide to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates; company command; and various staff positions in two light infantry divisions, including deployments to Afghanistan (2004–05, 2010–11) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (1999–2000).
Dr. Urben holds a BA in Government and International Studies from the University of Notre Dame, an MPM, MA, and PhD in Government from Georgetown University, and an MS in National Security Strategy from the National War College. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Visiting Research Fellow at the National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies. She is currently writing a book entitled, Sounding Off: Party, Politics, and the Officer Corps in the Post-9/11 Army.