Carol R. Kuntz
 Carol R. Kuntz  | ||||||||||||
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| Nationality | US | |||||||||||
| Alma mater | Princeton University, Cornell University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology | |||||||||||
| Member of | Quill and Dagger | |||||||||||
Career professional in the DoD helping to increase budgets. Helped establish the what later morphed into Operation Warp Speed, a program of rapidly mass-deployment of RNA vaccines.
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Dr. Carol R. Kuntz was a career official in the United States Department of Defense (DoD) for more than thirty years. From 2001 to 2009, as the U.S. government increased its annual expenditures on biodefense efforts from about $50 million to some $8 billion, she played a leading role in shaping many of the new initiatives.[1]
In the several years before Covid-19, she worked to embed cutting-edge biotechnologies (RNA vaccines) into DoD’s biodefense program to "strengthen its ability to rapidly configure vaccines to protect against novel pathogens,"[2][3] what later morphed into Operation Warp Speed.
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Education
Kuntz received her MPA from Princeton University and her BA from Cornell University.
She received her PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was part of MIT’s Program on Emerging Technology. Her dissertation demonstrated that changes in the nature of the biotechnologies and the strategic environment undercut the effectiveness of the classic biodefense strategy.
Career
At the end of the Cold War in 1989, Dr. Kuntz worked directly with the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and the Secretary of Defense in crafting a new defense strategy to replace the post-World War II strategy of Containment. She worked with colleagues to use this new strategy to identify and implement the resulting changes in the department’s forces and programs.[4]
For the five years after 9/11, Kuntz worked as the Homeland Security Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, advising him on all aspects of homeland security matters. She was a member of the Homeland Security Deputies Committee, the Deputy Cabinet Secretary level group that shaped national policy.
Kuntz played the leadership role in numerous policy initiatives, including particularly two Presidential Initiatives to strengthen defenses against terrorist attacks in the homeland, Project Bioshield in the Department of Health and Human Services and the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office in the Department of Homeland Security. Each of these initiatives sought to build organizations with the personnel, authorities and incentives to advance technology and successfully apply it to mitigate an emergent national security problem.[4]
In the final assignment of her civil service career, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2018, Dr. Kuntz sought to embed cutting-edge biotechnologies into the department’s countermeasure programs so as to defend against wholly novel biological threats, whether natural or engineered. Her efforts helped secure significant increases in fiscal, organizational, and policy support for “rapid response” efforts within the Department of Defense.[4]
Kuntz received numerous awards over the course of her government career, including twice receiving the Secretary of Defense Medal for Meritorious Civilian Service.[4]
Teaching
Kuntz teaches at Georgetown and George Washington Universities on the policy implications of Artificial Intelligence. She also serves as an Adjunct Fellow in the Technology Policy Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Her research focuses on the policy implications of advances in artificial intelligence and the biotechnologies. [4]
She also works as a senior advisor at The Chertoff Group.
