Kathleen Kennedy Townsend

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend is a research professor at Georgetown University, where she founded the Center for Retirement Initiatives. She was the Director of Retirement Security at the Economic Policy Institute from 2018 to 2019, and has also served as chair of the Governor’s Retirement Security Task Force for the State of Maryland. As the State of Maryland’s first woman lieutenant governor from 1995 to 2003, she was in charge of a multimillion dollar budget and had oversight of several major cabinet departments.

Prior to being elected lieutenant governor, Kathleen served as deputy assistant attorney general of the United States. She is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and has taught foreign policy at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Maryland. She founded the Maryland Student Service Alliance, making Maryland the first and still only state to make community service a requirement for high school graduation. An honors graduate of Harvard University, Kathleen received her law degree from the University of New Mexico where she was a member of the law review. She has received 14 honorary degrees. Her book, Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches Mixed God with Politics and Lost Their Way, was published by Warner Books in 2007.