Nancy Hayden

Nancy K. Hayden is PhD Candidate in International Security and Economic policy at the Maryland School of Public Policy, on leave from at Sandia National Laboratories, where she is an expert on the nexus of international security policy, science and technology, and the social sciences. Throughout her career she has led multi-disciplinary teams to address critical issues with far-reaching impact that include nuclear energy safety, nuclear waste management, nonproliferation, and counter terrorism. On assignments to US Government agencies, she has created collaborative partnerships with universities, non-governmental organizations, and international partners to effectively inform national security policy, being most recently involved in countering violent extremism, counter proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and cyber-warfare deterrence. She is an innovator –breaking new ground in the application of complexity science to analysis of security policy, and convening international workshops in unusual venues to spawn creativity and cross-fertilization of ideas and experiences.

Ms. Hayden has many peer-reviewed publications, and has traveled extensively as a subject matter expert in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and as a consultant to governments of the US, UK, Sweden, and Canada. She excels at managing cross-cultural teams under politically sensitive conditions, such as the US-China cooperation on nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. For the past decade, Ms. Hayden has researched the dynamics of civil conflict, with a special interest in the potential role of women as moderators of violence in society. As a PhD candidate in the Maryland School of Public Policy, she is studying the impacts of third party interventions on the resiliency of actors in civil conflict, and what that means in terms of conflict persistence and/or transformation. Ms. Hayden is a native of Texas and resident of New Mexico. She is a graduate of the executive program on nonviolent conflict at the Fletcher School of International Affairs at Tufts University. Ms. Hayden has received awards for excellence and lifelong learning from Sandia and the President’s Volunteer Service Award. She participates in professional and community organizations, has raised two wonderful children and enjoys her constant companion Chaco.