Jenna Jordan is an assistant professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago in 2011, M.A. in Political Science from Stanford University, and B.A. in International Relations from Mills College. She previously held a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago. While at the University of Chicago she was the lead research associate for the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (2004-2006) and coordinated the Program on International Politics, Economics and Security (2003-2005).
Her current book manuscript focuses on the leadership decapitation of terrorist organizations. Using an original database of over 800 instances of leadership attacks, case studies, and a social network analysis of al-Qaeda, the book evaluates the efficacy of leadership targeting as a counterterrorism strategy. She has also conducted research on population transfers, attachment to territory, suicide terrorism, organizational splintering, social network analysis of clandestine organizations, Pakistani political violence, illicit nuclear trade, and international relations theory. Her work on political violence has been published in International Security, Security Studies, Conflict Management and Peace Science, the New York Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and the CTC Sentinel. She is on the editorial board of the Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict. Her research has been supported by grants from the University of Chicago, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Georgia Institute of Technology.