Experts

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

Practitioner Senior Fellow
TenpasVitaSEPT2020.pdf

Fast Facts

  • Director of the Katzmann Initiative and visiting fellow with Governance Studies, the Brookings Institution
  • Advisory board member, White House Transition Project
  • Fellow, Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service

Areas Of Expertise

  • The First Year
  • Governance
  • Elections
  • Leadership
  • Politics
  • The Presidency

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas is director of the Katzmann Initiative and a visiting fellow with Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, advisory board member of the White House Transition Project, and a fellow with the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service.

Tenpas is a scholar of the American presidency focusing on White House staffing, presidential transitions, and the intersection of politics and policy within the presidency (e.g., presidential reelection campaigns, trends in presidential travel, and polling). She has authored the book Presidents as Candidates: Inside the White House for the Presidential Campaign and published more than 60 articles, book chapters, and papers on these topics.

Tenpas earned her BA degree from Georgetown University and her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Virginia.

Featured Publications

Presidents as Candidates
Presidents as Candidates

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas News Feed

The Hill
Senate backlog of Biden nominees frustrates White House
“There are plenty of nominees that are somewhere in the confirmation process and they’re just stuck,” said Kathryn Tenpas, a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution’s governance studies program.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas The Hill
NPR
Biden Wants To Reengage With The World, But His Ambassadors Are Mostly Absent
In comparison, at the 200-day mark (which was Sunday for Biden) former President Barack Obama had 59 ambassadors confirmed, George W. Bush had 53 ambassadors confirmed and Donald Trump had 19, according to Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, who tracks presidential appointees for the Brookings Institution. "The sluggish pace is simply striking, and the dearth of U.S. ambassadors that have been confirmed at this point in his administration is a historic low," said Tenpas, who is also a senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas NPR
The Hill
Biden's budget vacancy raises eyebrows
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, called it “highly unusual” for the OMB job to remain unfilled this far into the administration. She noted the Senate has been slower than past administrations in confirming Biden’s nominees, but in the case of OMB the president has yet to put forward another pick since withdrawing Tanden.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas The Hill
CBS19News
Database on staff members of Biden administration launches
Senior fellow Kathryn Dunn Tenpas has compiled a database of the Biden administration's staff members.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas CBS19News
USA Today
Biden insists his presidency is not a third Obama term; his staff picks suggest otherwise
Senior Fellow Kathryn Dunn Tenpas discusses President Biden's top staff picks, many of whom served in the prior Democratic administration. According to her analysis, a majority of key staff are women and nearly 40% are non-white or Hispanic.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas USA Today
WSJ
Biden Leads Predecessors in Nominations, Lags Behind in Confirmations
“These are firsts and they’re pathbreaking appointments,” said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who has studied presidential personnel.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas The Wall Street Journal