Rocky Mountain Harvard University Club

The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters

Tuesday, May 2 from 3 - 4:30pm MDT - Virtual Event (Signup link below)

As Coloradans continue to experience the threat of disaster, especially related to fire, this event promises to provide some helpful insights

The talk is based on the Hon. Juliette Kayyem's book "The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters."

The Harvard Alumni Disaster Preparedness and Response Team are pleased to host a free virtual lecture with Professor Juliette Kayyem. In academia, the private sector, government, and media, Juliette Kayyem is a national leader in homeland security and crisis management. She is currently the Robert and Renee Belfer Senior Lecturer and faculty chair of the Homeland Security and Security and Global Health Projects at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Professor Kayyem also serves as a national security analyst for CNN where she has been described as CNN’s “go-to” for disasters. A frequent contributor to The Atlantic, she has a weekly security segment on NPR’s Boston station WGBH. Her most recent book, The Devil Never Sleeps: Learning to Live in an Age of Disasters, was described in a New Yorker profile as an “engagingly urgent blueprint for rethinking our approach to disaster preparedness and response.”

In government, she most recently served as President Obama’s Assistant Secretary for Intergovernmental Affairs at the Department of Homeland Security. Previously, she was Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s Homeland Security Advisor, a role that included overseeing the National Guard. She is the recipient of many government honors, including the Distinguished Public Service Award, the Coast Guard’s highest medal awarded to a civilian. She has also served on the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Advisory Committee where she co-authored its strategic assessment of critical infrastructure and cyber security vulnerabilities.

Professor Kayyem is the author or editor of six books, and in 2013 she was named the Pulitzer Prize finalist for editorial columns in the Boston Globe focused on ending the Pentagon’s combat exclusion rule against women, a policy that was changed that year. She won the Telly Award in 2021 for “excellence in a digital series” for her online documentaries on climate change with MyRadar.com. She is a frequent speaker and advisor to major corporations and associations on national and homeland security, planning for a crisis, cybersecurity, and resiliency efforts. From 2020-2022, she served as faculty for a joint effort with Bloomberg Philanthropies and Harvard University to train mayors and city leaders for pandemic planning.

Professor Kayyem has also served as a member of the National Commission on Terrorism, a legal advisor to US Attorney General Janet Reno, and a trial attorney and counselor in the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Kayyem is also a board member of Mass Inc. and the Red Cross of MA.

Flip Koch AB'78, a Colorado-based alum, is a first responder in Conifer, CO, and one of the founders of Harvard Alumni Disaster Preparedness and Response Team.