Governor Patrick also joined Public Safety Secretary Kevin M. Burke in announcing the appointment of three other career criminal justice professionals who will serve as Undersecretaries for the Executive Office. Mary Elizabeth Heffernan, Kurt N. Schwartz, and LaDonna Hatton have also been tapped to lead secretariat forward on a number of critical public safety initiatives.
"These appointments continue our efforts to build the strongest possible team to serve the interests of Massachusetts," Patrick said. "Public safety and homeland security are central concerns of mine, and I am delighted that Secretary Burke is assembling such a strong organization."
"I am thrilled to have these seasoned, experienced professionals join my team," said Secretary Burke. "Each has a long and distinguished career in the criminal justice field and their experiences and expertise position them well to address the myriad of public safety and homeland security related issues confronting our Commonwealth."
Kayyem will join the team at the EOPS as Undersecretary for Homeland Security beginning January 22. Undersecretary Kayyem comes to EOPS from Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she has been a Lecturer in Public Policy. Since 2001, Undersecretary Kayyem has been a resident scholar at the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, serving most recently as Executive Director for Research where she oversaw the Center's substantive activities in international security, environment and energy policy. She is an expert in homeland security and terrorism and teaches courses on law, homeland security and national security. Undersecretary Kayyem has an extensive background in terrorism and national security affairs. She served as former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt's appointee to the National Commission on Terrorism, a congressionally-mandated review of how the government could better prepare for the growing terrorist threat. Before that, she served as a legal adviser to then Attorney General Janet Reno, where she worked on a variety of national security and terrorism cases and helped oversee the government's review of its classification procedures regarding secret evidence. She began her legal career as a trial lawyer, litigating cases throughout the United States on behalf of the Justice Department.
