Kristen Csenkey is a Graduate Fellow at NAADSN and a PhD Candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA). Her research focuses on cyber governance and the management of cyber operations and innovation in Canada. Kristen holds several fellowships, grants, and research positions. She is the 2020 Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)-Women in Defence and Security (WiDS) Fellow. Kristen is a Junior Fellow with the Defence and Security Foresight (DSF) Group led by Dr. Bessma Momani (University of Waterloo) and a network member of the DSF Group’s European NATO Team and the Gender Liaison. She is the Principal Investigator of a Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security (MINDS) Targeted Engagement Grant (TEG) to examine the future implications of dual-use and emerging technologies with military applications. In 2016, Kristen worked as part of the Political Affairs team at the Embassy to Hungary, Slovenia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina in Budapest and has held other government positions since then. Kristen graduated from the University of Toronto, holds an MA in anthropology, and completed her Master of Applied Politics (MAP) degree from Wilfrid Laurier University. Her MAP degree research focused on border security policies and nationalism in Hungary.

Kristen has written on diverse topics related to defence and security. These include: “Modernizing ‘We Have the Watch’: Opportunities for Canada within the Current Continental Defence Partnership” (2020) with Vincent Boucher and “The (Cyber) Future of Procurement” (2020), both as part of the DSF Group’s Policy Brief Series, and “Governing the Future(s) of Emerging Technologies”, co-authored with Dr. Nina Bindel, as part of the NAADSN Quick Impact Reports. She also complied and published “Simplifying Emerging Technologies: Risks and How to Mitigate Them” (2020), as part of the MINDS TEG. Other notable publications feature topics relating to Canada’s contributions to international peace and security in the South China Sea, 5G telecommunication policies in Europe, and on populism in Hungary. She is currently working a piece exploring cyber capacity building in the Canadian Arctic and the North for NAADSN. 

• Event Report: The North American Arctic Forum Event Report, March 2021
• Strategic Perspective: An Opportunity for NORAD Modernization in a Joint CA-US Cyber Component, by Kristen Csenkey and MCpl Dominique Philippe Genest, January 2021. Publié en français avec le Réseau d’analyse stratégique
• Strategic Perspective: An Opportunity for NORAD Modernization in a Joint CA-US Cyber Component, by Kristen Csenkey and MCpl Dominique Philippe Genest, January 2021
• Strategic Perspective: Cyber Capacity Building in the Canadian Arctic and the North, by Kristen Csenkey and Maj. Bruno Perron, October 2020
• Quick Impact: Governing the Future(s) of Emerging Technologies in Canada, by Kristen Csenkey and Nina Bindel, August 2020