Laura Manning Johnson currently serves as the Deputy Chief of Deliberate Plans in the Office of
Operations Coordination and Planning, for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Johnson
helped stand up DHS in 2003 and served as the Deputy Director for Fusion within the National
Operations Center from its inception in 2003 until 2008. Prior to joining DHS, Johnson served as
an Intelligence Analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). During her tenure at the CIA, she
was the Executive Assistant to the Director of the Non-Proliferation Center (NPC), and a Weapons
of Mass Destruction (WMD) Advisor to the Vice President's WMD National Preparedness Review.
She was the first Director of Central Intelligence Representative to the Office of Homeland Security
beginning in October, 2001. Laura served for five years as an Assistant Professor at American
University where she taught American Government; she also taught as an Adjunct Professor there
from 1997 to 2005. She has served as an adjunct professor at University of California, Santa
Barbara; Long Island University, Brentwood; and Oklahoma State University. She concludes her
three-years as a member of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) Board of
Directors in Fall 2010.
Johnson holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a
Masters/Bachelors in Political Science from Oklahoma State University. Her areas of focus were
Public Policy, Public Law, and Public Administration.
