Jessica L Malekos Smith

Zhanna L. Malekos Smith, JD, is a professor for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, an adjunct faculty for New York University's Center for Global Affairs, and a senior associate with the Aerospace Security Project and Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.  Additionally, she is a non-resident fellow at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, and the Army Cyber Institute at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Previously, she was an assistant professor in the Systems Engineering Department at West Point and a professor of cyber warfare studies with the U.S. Air War College. Her expertise spans cybersecurity, space, emerging technologies, and international security. Zhanna has appeared on CNN, NBC, the BBC, and her commentary has appeared in POLITICO, Nature, Physics Today, and elsewhere. A former captain and attorney in the Air Force’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, she received her commission from the ROTC program at MIT, where she was a cross-registered student and participated in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program. She holds a BA in Russian and international relations from Wellesley College, an MA and associateship of King’s College from King’s College London, Department of War Studies, and a JD from the University of California, Davis. Zhanna has held fellowships with the Madeleine K. Albright Institute for Global Affairs, the Belfer Center’s Cyber Security Project at the Harvard Kennedy School, Duke University Law School, and Stanford University’s U.S.-Russia Forum. She is a volunteer consultant for Hostage US, a nonprofit that supports the families of Americans taken hostage abroad and hostages when they return home.