Kara Frederick is a Research Fellow in the Center for Technology Policy at The Heritage Foundation. Her
research focuses on “Big Tech” and emerging technology policy.
Prior to joining Heritage, she was a Fellow for the Technology & National Security Program at the Center
for a New American Security (CNAS), where she concentrated on high-tech illiberalism, data privacy, and
digital surveillance.
Before CNAS, Kara helped create and lead Facebook’s Global Security Counterterrorism Analysis
Program. She was also the team lead for Facebook Headquarters’ Regional Intelligence Team in Menlo
Park, California. Prior to Facebook, she was a Senior Intelligence Analyst for a U.S. Naval Special Warfare
Command and spent six years as a counterterrorism analyst at the Department of Defense. While at the
Department of Defense, she deployed three times to Afghanistan in support of special operations
forces, served as a briefer to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low Intensity
Conflict, and was a liaison to the National Security Agency.
Kara has testified on emerging technology issues before subcommittees of both chambers of Congress.
She spent two years as a lecturer on technology and international affairs at the George Washington
University’s Elliott School of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. and is a current Fellow with the
National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School.
She received her MA in war studies from King’s College London and her BA in foreign affairs and history
from the University of Virginia.