Sarah Chervenak

Director, Center for National Policy Engagement and Information Sharing Initiatives

Sarah Chervenak, JD, is the director of the Center for National Policy Engagement and Information Sharing Initiatives. She has an extensive background in project management, development, and implementation related to information and intelligence sharing projects, and law enforcement programs and policies, at the federal, state, and local levels. In various capacities, Ms. Chervenak has participated in the Criminal Intelligence Coordinating Council (CICC) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) Partners Board and served as a subject-matter expert in several national-level interagency committees and working groups. Ms. Chervenak now serves as the lead coordinator for program engagements while developing project plans and overseeing task teams on both short- and long-term projects.

Ms. Chervenak is an experienced law enforcement officer, having served 24 years as a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the last 8 as a unit chief for the Office of Partner Engagement (OPE), and retiring in 2021. In this capacity, Ms. Chervenak engaged extensively with interagency partners, associations, and organizations across the law enforcement and intelligence communities. She oversaw several FBI and OPE priority programs, to include engagement with state and local fusion centers, the eGuardian system, the Domestic Director of National Intelligence Representative Program, the FBI’s participation in the Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team, OPE’s information sharing and dissemination program, and a comprehensive intelligence training initiative developed for law enforcement partners. Ms. Chervenak was detailed to the ODNI from May 2015 to May 2016, where she supported and advanced initiatives and integration among intelligence community, federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial partners on priority threats.

Prior to her promotion to unit chief, Ms. Chervenak was selected in 2012 to lead the team responsible for designing and implementing the FBI’s Threat Review and Prioritization process, which revolutionized how the FBI prioritizes national and local threats and develops national-level mitigation strategies. Ms. Chervenak was assigned to a Los Angeles, California, Field Office Joint Terrorism Task Force from 2008 to 2010, where she investigated complex counterterrorism cases. Ms. Chervenak’s first FBI assignment was to the Washington, DC, Field Office, where she spent 11 years investigating international terrorism and cyber counterterrorism. She responded to and assisted in the 1998 investigation of the U.S. Embassy bombing in Tanzania, was a case agent for the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon, and participated in numerous investigations having a nexus to the 9/11 attacks.

Ms. Chervenak holds a juris doctor degree from Samford University Cumberland School of Law and a bachelor of arts degree in history and political science from Wesleyan College.