Catherine Kelleher

Catherine McArdle Kelleher, who died on February 15, 2023, advanced the objectives of international security and arms control as a scholar, practitioner, institution-builder, role model, mentor, and friend. She is best known for her work on conventional arms control and cooperative security in Europe, her establishment of Women in International Security (WIIS), and her enthusiastic participation in countless workshops, Track 2 dialogues, and professional meetings. We encourage you to read more about her impact here. 

Catherine McArdle Kelleher is a scholar and former government official who specializes in U.S. security relations with NATO and Russia. She became a founding faculty member of the UMD School of Public Policy in 1982 and the first director of the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM). Her time in government includes service as President Clinton's deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, and the secretary of defense's representative to NATO in Brussels. She was also on President Carter's National Security Council staff and a professor at the Naval War College. She was also a senior fellow of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution and directed the Aspen Institute in Berlin. 

Kelleher was appointed College Park Professor in August 2006. While concurrently a senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, Kelleher taught courses on foreign, defense, energy, and arms control policies. She wrote extensively on conventional and nuclear arms control as well as on German, Russian and European security issues.

Recent publications include Regional Missile Defense from a Global Perspective (co-edited with Peter Dombrowski) and Getting to Zero: The Path to Nuclear Disarmament (co-edited with Judith Reppy). 

Kelleher has been decorated for her public service by both the American and German governments. She was the first president of Women in International Security (WIIS). She also served for 15 years as vice chair of the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academies of Sciences, directing annual policy dialogues with China, Russia and India. She received an A.B. from Mt. Holyoke College and a Ph.D in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.