Past Events

A Special Ambassadors’ Forum:“The Current State of American Diplomacy and Future Outlook”
A Special Ambassadors’ Forum:“The Current State of American Diplomacy and Future Outlook”
In an uncertain political environment, with the retirement or resignation of so many experienced senior career Foreign Service Officers, American diplomacy is in danger of falling into a state of disarray. Can the United States maintain its global diplomatic primacy and leadership? Two former senior...
Biological Terrorism: International Dimensions
Biological Terrorism: International Dimensions
March 28, 2019 IUCTS Biological security concerns ranging from mother nature to man-made threats by state and non-state actors transcends geographic regions. Is the international community prepared to identify, prevent, counter, and respond to future biological challenges? What are the past less...
Security Strategies for Global Supply Chains
Security Strategies for Global Supply Chains
Many industries critical to national security depend on supply chains that today are highly interconnected and global in reach. Attacks and other disruptions to these supply chains can have serious downstream consequences to our economy, infrastructure, and military capabilities. The U.S. government...
"The Role of Diplomacy in Combating Terrorism: Past Lessons and Future Outlook"
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR TERRORISM STUDIES AT POTOMAC INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES A Special Seminar on "The Role of Diplomacy in Combating Terrorism: Past Lessons and Future Outlook"
Combating Terrorism: National, Regional, and Global Lessons for the Next Decade and Beyond
Combating Terrorism: National, Regional, and Global Lessons for the Next Decade and Beyond
The Potomac Institute's International Center for Terrorism Studies on April 30th, 2018 held their 20th annual event on, "Combating Terrorism: National, Regional, and Global Lessons for the Next Decade and Beyond". Terrorism by state and non-state actors poses threats to individuals, communities, nat...
Balkan Security Challenges: Past Lessons and Future Outlook
Balkan Security Challenges: Past Lessons and Future Outlook
The Potomac Institute's International Center for Terrorism Studies hosted a seminar on March 1, 2018 entitled, "Balkan Security Challenges: Past Lessons and Future Outlook". The Balkans remain vulnerable to several security concerns, including organized crime, terrorism, the refugee crisis, politica...

The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is excited to announce Dr. Lisa Costa as our newest Senior Fellow.

Dr. Costa is the Director of Countering WMD and Violent Extremism at MITRE. She brings over three decades of progressive leadership tackling complex, sensitive intelligence problems facing our nation's most critical missions. She is an expert in counter terrorism (CT) and intelligence analysis. She chairs MITRE’s Corporate CWMD and CT Council and was the lead for IR&D in Enhancing Intelligence Analysis (EIA), ensuring a focus on innovation, rigor and measurable progress on “hard problems”.

Previously, Dr. Costa was the Executive Director of Integration for MITRE’s National Security and Engineering FFRDC responsible for integrating across missions, sponsors, and programs. She provided executive strategic planning for MITRE’s business operations and advancing the Center's $1B business base.

Prior to this, Dr. Costa was MITRE’s Chief Scientist for the Combatant Commands and Defense and Service Intelligence agencies. She was on the OSD Senior Technical Experts Group providing advice on data science and computational social science.

Dr. Costa was responsible for establishing the largest data repository and data mining capability outside the NCR in support of special mission unit target adjudication. As the Director of the Non-Traditional Information and Knowledge Exploitation cell, located at USSOCOM, she led multidisciplinary teams to develop worldwide assessments using all source data. These efforts were at the request of Combatant Commanders via P4 memoranda to the Chairman, JCS. This work has been used as a model for intelligence centers across DOD, US government agencies, and federal law enforcement.

Dr. Costa was on the Defense Science Boards (DSBs) for Joint Forces and Special Operations in Support of the Global War on Terrorism, Intelligence in Support of Countering Terrorism, and The DOD’s Role in Homeland Security. Dr. Costa earned a BS (1986) degree in Computer Science and Mathematics, an MBA (1990), and a PhD (1993) in Computer Science.