Jessica Trisko Darden is Professor of Political Science at Virginia Commonwealth University and Fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Her research centers on the connections between gender, security, and foreign assistance. She has led training sessions for the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism and is an internationally-recognized expert on women’s involvement in political violence.
Dr. Trisko Darden is the author of four books, including The Accused: How Women Faced Justice for Nazi-Era Crimes (Yale University Press, 2026), Women as War Criminals: Gender, Agency, and Justice (Stanford University Press, 2020), and Aiding and Abetting: US Foreign Assistance and State Violence (Stanford University Press, 2020).
From 2017-2019, Dr. Trisko Darden was an inaugural Jeane Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Dr. Trisko Darden holds a PhD in Political Science from McGill University, a MA in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, and a BA in International Development Studies and Russian Studies from McGill.