Kathleen (Young) Smarick is the former Executive Director of START. Prior to that, Dr. Smarick served as director of the ICONS Project, an international education program. She has also developed and run training programs in leadership, negotiation, conflict resolution, and crisis management for public- and private-sector officials at all levels. Dr. Smarick earned a B.A. in Government and International Relations from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland's Department of Government and Politics. She has taught courses in international negotiation, international relations, and national security decision-making at both the University of Maryland and the United States Naval Academy, and served as adjunct faculty and a Fellow with the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at the Bush School of Public Policy at Texas A&M University. She is a co-author of Mediating International Crises (Routledge, 2005) as well as several journal articles on terrorism, foreign-policy crises, and education programs and practices related to these topics.