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

article headline
How do you become a political appointee? With Kathryn Dunn Tenpas
Getting a job can be really hard—but getting a job as a Senate-confirmed, presidential appointee can be even harder. Today on “Transition Lab,” we welcome Kathryn Dunn Tenpas for a conversation about the role of political appointees in the federal government and the pathway to these jobs.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Partnership for Public Service
miller center headline
'Watchdogs': Holding the government accountable
Glenn Fine was the U.S. Department of Justice's inspector general from 2000 to 2011 and served as the acting inspector general of the U.S. Department of Defense from 2016 to 2020. He joins Craig Whitlock, an investigative reporter at the Washington Post and author of The Afghanistan Papers, for a conversation on government accountability moderated by Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, Miller Center practitioner senior fellow and director of the Katzmann Initiative on Improving Interbranch Relations and Government at the Brookings Institution.
Guian McKee, Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Miller Center Presents
gov exec headline
The Biden administration has far less turnover than Trump. Does that impact agency performance?
Tenpas suggested Biden’s long career helped him develop a team that he knew would stick around. “He’s been in politics for so many years, he knows how to pick staff and knows who he trusts,” she said.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Government Executive
Daily Kos headline
Stability or chaos: The turnover rate in the Biden vs. Trump Cabinets speaks for itself
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a visiting fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, has written detailed analyses on overall staff turnover in the Trump administration and the Biden administration.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Daily Kos
brookings headline
Staff turnover in year three of the Biden administration
2023 was another challenging year for the president — tepid approval ratings, narrow margins in Congress, calls for impeachment, new and continuing military conflict abroad, and an economy struggling to regain its footing. Despite these challenges, relative stability in White House staffing continued to be a Biden administration hallmark, particularly when compared to the tumult in the Trump administration.
Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Brookings
Good Authority headline
In Memoriam: Charles O. Jones
Charles O. Jones rose to prominence in political science as an expert on the U.S. Congress – the subject he first taught me at the University of Virginia. But over time he expanded the scope of his influence and became perhaps the nation’s preeminent student of Washington’s political institutions.
Russell Riley, Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Good Authority