Marisa L. Porges

Marisa L. Porges is an associate fellow at ICSR. She is also working on her PhD at King’s College London, writing a dissertation focused on the use of deradicalisation as a counterterrorism tool. She specializes in counter terrorism and detention strategies, with specific focus on efforts to counter radicalisation and combat terrorist financing. Marisa is a frequent commentator in international media, and to private and public audiences. Her publications include pieces in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, the New York Times/International Herald Tribune, and the Wall Street Journal, and she has appeared on CNN, CSPAN, Al Jazeera, and more.

Porges previously served as an officer in the U.S. Navy, a counterterrorism policy adviser in the U.S. government, and a research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Most recently, she was an international affairs fellow at CFR, where she studied counterterrorism strategies and conducted fieldwork in Yemen, Afghanistan, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. Prior to that, Porges was a counterterrorism policy adviser at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, helping craft international strategies to combat money launder, terrorist financing and corruption. While there, she served as a strategic adviser to General Petraeus’s Central Command Assessment Team. Porges also worked in the U.S. Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy, as an adviser in the Office of Detainee Affairs. Her responsibilities included negotiating with foreign governments and coordinating U.S. efforts to repatriate detainees from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Afghanistan.

Porges began her career a commissioned naval flight officer. She served on active duty flying the U.S. Navy’s EA-6B Prowler, and deployed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln during Operation Unified Assistance, the humanitarian relief effort after a tsunami hit Indonesia in 2004. She received an AB in geophysics from Harvard University and an MSc from the London School of Economics.