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Kennette Benedict

Political ScientistChicago, IL

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Kennette Benedict Listen to Kennette Benedict’s Oral History on Voices of the Manhattan Project

Kennette Benedict is an American political scientist. She is currently a senior advisor to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and is a lecturer at the University of Chicago. She also writes a regular column for the Bulletin. She served as the Bulletin’s Executive Director and Publisher from 2005 until February 2015.

Before that, she was the Director of International Peace and Security program at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where she oversaw the foundation’s grant-making decisions on international security topics. Previously, she was deputy director of the program and worked as a consultant. Benedict has also taught at Rutgers University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 

She holds a B.A. from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford.

Kennette Benedict’s Timeline
1971 Received a B.A. from Oberlin College.

1980 Received a Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.

1992 Mar2005 Sep Served as Director of International Peace and Security at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

2005 Oct2015 Feb Served as Executive Editor and Publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

2012 Apr Became a Senior Fellow at the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago.

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