Meet the New America Cybersecurity Team

Blog Post
Feb. 18, 2015

New America's Core Cybersecurity Initiative Team


Kevin Bankston is the Co-Director of the Cybersecurity Initiative and the Policy Director of the New America’s Open Technology Institute, where he works in the public interest to promote policy and regulatory reforms to strengthen communities by supporting open communications networks, platforms, and technologies, with a focus on issues of Internet surveillance and censorship. Prior to leading OTI’s policy team, Kevin was a Senior Counsel and the Director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology. Since 2005, he has served on the board of the First Amendment Coalition, a non-profit public interest organization dedicated to advancing free speech and a more open and accountable government, and previously was a nonresident fellow at the Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet & Society. Prior to CDT, he worked at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where, as a Senior Staff Attorney at EFF, he was a lead counsel in EFF’s lawsuits against the National Security Agency and AT&T, challenging the legality of the NSA warrantless wiretapping program first revealed in 2005. He originally joined EFF as an Equal Justice Works/Bruce J. Ennis First Amendment Fellow, studying the impact of post-9/11 anti-terrorism surveillance initiatives on online privacy and free expression. Before joining EFF, he litigated Internet-related free speech cases at the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York City as a Justice William Brennan First Amendment Fellow. He received his JD at the University of Southern California Law School after receiving his BA at the University of Texas at Austin.

Megan E. Garcia is the lead for the Initiative's Women in Cyber work, a Senior Fellow and Director of Growth, California, exploring how the work of New America’s programs links to exciting local approaches to problem solving taking place on the west coast. She is an expert on national security policy and writes about how it can be better informed by the processes deployed in Silicon Valley and other centers of innovation. Previously Megan was a Program Officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation where she oversaw the creation of the foundation’s Cyber Initiative, designed to help generate a field of cybersecurity and Internet Policy experts more focused on the public good. She also oversaw Hewlett’s Nuclear Security initiative, a portfolio of grants with the goal of reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. Megan has been Military Legislative Assistant to U.S. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, a Policy Fellow for U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown during his time in the House of Representatives, a consultant to USAID’s Office of Military Affairs, and has worked for Public Citizen California.

Robyn Greene is the policy counsel for the Open Technology Institute at New America Foundation specializing in issues concerning surveillance and cybersecurity. She helps to research and develop policies to protect individuals' privacy, secure the Internet, and fuel the development of and access to emerging technologies. Prior to joining the Open Technology Institute, Ms. Greene worked at the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington Legislative Office, where she focused on legislation and Administration policies concerning surveillance, cybersecurity, government secrecy, and federal law enforcement oversight. Before working at the ACLU, Ms. Greene ran issue based grassroots advocacy campaigns with Grassroots Campaigns, on behalf of non-profit organizations including Amnesty International and the ACLU. Ms. Greene earned a B.A. in government and politics at the University of Maryland, and a J.D. from Hofstra University School of Law.


Robert Morgus is a Program Associate at New America’s Open Technology Institute, where he combines his technical knowledge with a background in international relations to provide policy relevant research and writing at the intersection of cyber space and international affairs. He focuses broadly on issues pertaining international cybersecurity and cyberwarfare, and Internet governance and freedom. His work has been showcased in The New York Times, TIME, Slate, and others. Before joining the New America, Robert provided research and logistical assistance for a variety of organizations ranging from sustainable development firms to political action committees. Robert received his B.A. with honors in Diplomacy and World Affairs from Occidental College in Los Angeles in 2013 where he focused on international security and strategy. While at Occidental, he was the recipient of the Young Fund Student Grant to conduct research on ethno-nationalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia. His capstone thesis "Economic Shocks as a Catalyst for Instability: Conditions and Transmission Channels" was one of six honored by the college.

Peter W. Singer is a Strategist and Senior Fellow at New America. He is considered one of the world's leading experts on 21st century security issues and is the author of multiple award-winning books. He has been named by the Smithsonian Institution-National Portrait Gallery as one of the 100 leading innovators in the nation, by Defense News as one of the 100 most influential people in defense issues, and by Foreign Policy magazine to their Top 100 Global Thinkers List. His books include Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry, Children at War, and Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century. His most recent book, Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know, was named to both the US Army and US Navy professional reading list. Singer is a contributing editor at Popular Science magazine and the founder of NeoLuddite, a technology advisory firm. He has consulted for the US military, Defense Intelligence Agency, and FBI, as well as advised a wide-range of technology and entertainment programs, including for Warner Brothers, Dreamworks, Universal, HBO, and the video game series Call of Duty, the best-selling entertainment project in history. He is a member of the US State Department's Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy. His past work included serving as coordinator of the Obama-08 campaign's defense policy task force, in the Balkans Task Force at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and as the founding director of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at The Brookings Institution, where he was the youngest senior fellow in its 100 year history.

Anne-Marie Slaughter is currently the President and CEO of New America, a think tank and civic enterprise with offices in Washington and New York. She is also the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor Emerita of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. From 2009–2011 she served as director of Policy Planning for the United States Department of State, the first woman to hold that position. Upon leaving the State Department she received the Secretary’s Distinguished Service Award for her work leading the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review, as well as meritorious service awards from USAID and the Supreme Allied Commander for Europe. Prior to her government service, Dr. Slaughter was the Dean of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs from 2002–2009 and the J. Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School from 1994-2002. Dr. Slaughter has written or edited six books, including A New World Order (2004) and The Idea That Is America: Keeping Faith with Our Values in a Dangerous World (2007), and over 100 scholarly articles. She was the convener and academic co-chair, with Professor John Ikenberry, of the Princeton Project on National Security, a multi-year research project aimed at developing a new, bipartisan national security strategy for the United States. In 2012 she published the article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All,” in The Atlantic, which quickly became the most read article in the history of the magazine and helped spawn a renewed national debate on the continued obstacles to genuine full male-female equality. Dr. Slaughter writes a monthly column for Project Syndicate. She provides frequent commentary for both mainstream and new media and curates foreign policy news for over 80,000 followers on Twitter. Foreign Policy magazine named her to their annual list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012. She received a B.A. from Princeton, an M.Phil and D.Phil in international relations from Oxford, where she was a Daniel M. Sachs Scholar, and a J.D. from Harvard. She is married to Professor Andrew Moravcsik; they live in Princeton with their two sons.

Ian Wallace is a Senior Fellow in the International Security Program, and Co-Director of New America’s Cybersecurity Initiative. His research is mainly focused on the international security and military dimensions of cybersecurity policy. He is also a member of the ‘Future of War’ project. Ian joined New America from the Brookings Institution where he spent two years in the Foreign Policy Program as a Visiting Fellow for Cybersecurity. He was previously a senior official at the British Ministry of Defence (MOD). From 2009-2013 Wallace was as the British Embassy, Washington’s defense policy and nuclear counselor. There he helped develop new UK/US mil/mil cyber link at both the operational and policy levels. Before joining the embassy he was a fellow at the Weatherhead Center at Harvard University where his research included working on the military implications of cyber capabilities. During his UK MOD career, he combined strategy and planning positions with operational postings to Pristina (2001-2002), Basra (2005) and Baghdad (2007-2008). He also served as the head of policy at the UK’s operational HQ (2002-2003). His Whitehall appointments included Deputy Director of Capability, Resource and Scrutiny and Assistant Director of Defence Resources (with day-to-day responsibility for the UK MOD’s overall resource planning process). From 2000-2001 he was the Assistant Private Secretary to the UK Defence Secretary. Wallace has a degree in ancient and modern history from Christ Church, Oxford University.

Andi Wilson is a Policy Program Associate at New America’s Open Technology Institute, where she researches and writes about the relationship between technology and international relations. With a specific focus on cybersecurity, Andi is currently working on issues including encryption, surveillance, and Internet freedom. Before joining New America, Andi received a Master of Global Affairs degree through the Munk School at the University of Toronto. While there she conducted research on how revelations of increased Internet surveillance have impacted the ability to identify global threats. Andi completed a placement at the Embassy of Canada in Bangkok, where she covered the transnational crime, human rights, and cyber files for Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos. Her Honors B.A. is in Political Science, also from the University of Toronto.