Erica Lonergan
Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs
Personal Details
Focus Areas: Cybersecurity, International Security, Security Studies, Grand Strategy, National Security
Dr. Erica Lonergan (née Borghard) is an Assistant Professor in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. Previously, Erica held several positions at the United States Military Academy at West Point. These include serving as an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Social Science and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; a fellow at the Army Cyber Institute; and the Executive Director of the Rupert H. Johnson Grand Strategy Program. She has also held positions as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Atlantic Council.
Beyond her academic and research appointments, Erica has an extensive background in strategy and policy. Erica currently serves as a member of the Board of Visitors of the U.S. Army War College. Previously, she was a lead writer of the 2023 U.S. Department of Defense Cyber Strategy, as well as the Congressionally-mandated Department of Defense Cyber Posture Review. Prior to that, Erica served as a Senior Director on the U.S. Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan Congressional commission established to develop a new strategy and policies to defend the United States in cyberspace. Erica continues to serve as a Senior Advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission 2.0. She also held an appointment as a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, with placement at JPMorgan Chase and U.S. Cyber Command at the Cyber National Mission Force.
Erica has published widely on cybersecurity, grand strategy, military affairs, and international security. Her book, Escalation Dynamics in Cyberspace, was recently published at Oxford University Press. Additionally, Erica has published articles in top-tier academic journals, including American Political Science Review, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, and Strategic Studies Quarterly. She has also written policy articles for a number of think tanks, as well as articles in venues such as Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and Lawfare.
Erica received her PhD in Political Science from Columbia University.
Education
- PhD in Political Science, Columbia University
In The Media
SIPA's Jason Healey and Erica Lonergan comment on the Trump administration's firing of Gen. Timothy Haugh, commander of US Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency.
Creating a dedicated U.S. Cyber Force as a new branch of the armed services could transform America’s ability to defend against growing cyber threats. In this new FDD Monograph, Erica Lonergan and Mark Montgomery outline the current gaps, what a U.S. Cyber Force would look like, how it could strengthen U.S. national security.
Erica Lonergan and Jack Snyder, authors of "Cultural Change in Military Organizations: Hackers and Warriors in the US Army," discuss the fusion of cyber and traditional military cultures within the U.S. Army, focusing on the creation of the Cyber Corps and its implications for national security.
"A cyber culture that exists in an inhospitable broader military culture may impede the integration and coordination of cyber and conventional operations on a battlefield," Erica D. Lonergan and Jack Snyder write.
More than two decades after declaring cyberspace a warfighting domain, the U.S. military relies on an inefficient and ineffective solution to generate the capabilities needed to defend it, write Erica Lonergan and Jiwon Ma MIA '21.