Dr. Kristin Ven Bruusgaard is Director of the Norwegian Intelligence School. She served as the Deputy Leader of the 2021 Norwegian Government Defense Commission, providing advice on future Norwegian defense policy for the next 10-20 years. Previously she was a Postdoctoral Fellow (Assistant Professor) of Political Science at the University of Oslo, a Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow and a Stanton Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University, a Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies (IFS), and a senior security policy analyst in the Norwegian Armed Forces.

Her academic research focuses on Soviet and Russian nuclear strategy, nuclear and non-nuclear deterrence, crisis and deterrence dynamics in Europe and the Arctic/High North. She holds a Ph.D. in Defence Studies from King's College London and an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University. She is a certified language officer in the Norwegian Army. Her work has been published in Foreign Affairs, Security Dialogue, Journal of Strategic Studies, Survival, War on the Rocks, Texas National Security Review, Parameters and Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and by Cambridge University Press. She was awarded the 2020 Amos Perlmutter Prize from the Journal of Strategic Studies for her article Russian Nuclear Strategy and Conventional Inferiority.