Elsa B. Kania

Elsa B. Kania is an adjunct fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, where she focuses on Chinese defense innovation and emerging technologies, particularly artificial intelligence. Her research interests include Chinese military modernization, information warfare, and defense science and technology. She is an independent analyst, consultant, and co-founder of the China Cyber and Intelligence Studies Institute (CCISI), which seeks to become the premier venue for analysis and insights on China’s use of cyber and intelligence capabilities as instruments of national power. Her prior professional experience includes working at the Department of Defense, the Long Term Strategy Group, FireEye, Inc., and the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy. Elsa is a graduate of Harvard College, where her thesis on the evolution of the PLA’s strategic thinking on information warfare was awarded the James Gordon Bennett Prize. While at Harvard, she worked as a research assistant at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs. Elsa was a Boren Scholar in Beijing, China, and she is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.