James Clapper to speak at Penn State on November 6

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Honorable James R. Clapper, the former director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama, will speak at Penn State on Nov. 6 as the first guest speaker of the new Center for Security Research and Education.

Clapper’s talk is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in the Sutliff Auditorium of the Lewis Katz Building on Penn State’s University Park campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Clapper served as the fourth director of national intelligence from August 9, 2010, to January 20, 2017. In this position, he led the United States intelligence community and served as the principal intelligence adviser to President Obama.

Clapper retired in 1995 after a distinguished career in the U.S. Armed Forces. His career began in 1961 when he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve and culminated as a lieutenant general in the U.S. Air Force and director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. His intelligence-related positions over his 32 years in uniform included assistant chief of staff for intelligence at Headquarters, U.S. Air Force, during Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and director of intelligence for three combatant commands: U.S. Forces, Korea; Pacific Command, and Strategic Air Command. He served two combat tours during the Southeast Asia conflict, and flew 73 combat support missions in EC-47’s over Laos and Cambodia.

Clapper returned to the government two days after 9/11 as the first civilian director of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). He served in this capacity for almost five years, transforming it into the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) as it is today.

Prior to becoming the director of national intelligence, Clapper served for over the three years in two presidential administrations as the undersecretary of defense for intelligence, where he served as the principal staff assistant and adviser to the secretary and deputy secretary on intelligence, counterintelligence, and security matters for the department. In this capacity, he was also dual-hatted as the director of defense intelligence for the DNI.

Clapper earned a bachelor’s degree in government and politics from the University of Maryland, a master’s degree in political science from St. Mary’s University, San Antonio, Texas, and an honorary doctorate in strategic intelligence form the then Joint Military Intelligence College.

About the Center for Security Research and Education

The Center for Security Research and Education (CSRE) at Penn State promotes research, teaching, and public outreach programs in the field of security. CSRE brings scholars from diverse disciplines, including from the School of International Affairs, together to pursue comprehensive solutions to security challenges. CSRE also works to promote public discussion on the critical security issues of the day.