Kimberly Marten is an author and scholar specializing in international security, foreign policy, Russia, and environmental politics. She held the 5-year-term Ann Whitney Olin Professorship of Political Science at Barnard College from 2013 to 2018, and then returned to chair the Barnard Political Science Department for a second time from 2018-2021. She was the director of the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations at Columbia University’s Harriman Institute from 2015 to 2019, and the Harriman Institute published a profile of her career. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and a frequent media commentator. Early life and education Marten was born and raised in Minnesota. She was on her high school debate and speech team, and competed in the nationals tournament. She earned her A.B. in Government at Harvard University (she graduated magna cum laude and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society) in 1985 and her Ph.D. in political science at Stanford University in 1991. She held a post-doctoral position at Stanford's Center for International Security and Arms Control (since renamed the Center for International Security and Cooperation). Career Marten was an assistant professor in the Political Science Department at the Ohio State University from 1991 to 1997, where she was also affiliated with the Mershon Center. During her time there, she spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Olin Institute at Harvard University. She then moved to Barnard College, where she was tenured in 2000. She received a Hitachi International Affairs Fellowship in Japan from the Council on Foreign Relations, and was a visiting fellow at the Institute for International Policy Studies in Tokyo. Marten became a full professor at Barnard in 2005. She served as the Political Science department chair from 2006 to 2009 and then again from 2018 to 2021. While at Barnard she has also held a variety of positions at Columbia University's Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies. Books and major publications Kimberly Marten's research uses case studies, based mostly on primary sources and her own interviews with policy makers around the world. Her recent work analyzes Russian foreign and security policy, including a special focus on Russia's Wagner Group private military company and Russian intelligence agencies. Her 2018 article in International Politics explains President Vladimir Putin's decision to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election; another in the