Center for a New American Security

Dr. Nancy E. Brune is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow with the Center for a New American Security and a Senior Policy Analyst at Sandia National Laboratories where she works on issues of natural security, energy security, the water-energy-food-security nexus, climate change and national security. 

Prior to joining Sandia, she was the Director of Research and Policy at the Institute for Security Studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas where she also served as the director of the Energy Security Policy Initiative. Dr. Brune has consulted for the Harvard School of Public Health, the World Bank, JPMorgan Chase and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation on issues of international development, trade and investment, public sector and market reforms, international business strategy, governance and globalization and human security.

Dr. Brune is the author of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, reports, essays and op-ed pieces. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Energy Security, Americas Quarterly, IMF Staff Papers, Social Science and Medicine, World Politics Review and the Las Vegas Sun. In addition to her writings, she has worked and traveled in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Brune served as part of the National Democratic Institute’s election monitoring team in Nigeria in 2011. She is fluent in Spanish and has a working command of Portuguese.

Dr. Brune is a fellow with the Truman National Security Project, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy and sits on the International Advisory Board of the Journal of Energy Security. She has been an adjunct professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, the College of Southern Nevada and the University of New Mexico’s Anderson School of Management.

Dr. Brune received her Ph.D. from Yale University and her Master of Public Policy and B.A. degrees from Harvard University. Dr. Brune was awarded research fellowships at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Las Vegas.