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.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas News Feed

America's tradition: the peaceful transfer of power

David Marchick joins New York Times Chief White House Correspondent Peter Baker, former assistant to President Trump Chris Liddell, and Miller Center Practitioner Senior Fellow Katie Dunn Tenpas to discuss the long-held American tradition of peaceful presidential transitions.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Miller Center Presents

White House prepares for post-midterm turnover

"There's probably a fair amount of job satisfaction," said Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, practitioner senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center and a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who tracks turnover.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Axios

Biden has achieved historic diversity

“From my perspective, diversity in the Biden administration far surpasses his predecessors’ in so many different ways,” says Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, practitioner senior fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Washington Post

Biden's cabinet hasn't changed, a sharp break from Trump

Biden's first year turnover "was one of the lowest of the past six administrations and may reflect the influence of experience and a professional transition operation," wrote Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, Practitioner Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas CNN

Waiting for Advice and Consent

Staffing the top levels of the executive branch is a high-priority task for new presidents. Roughly 4,000 presidentially appointed positions are spread across the executive branch, and appointees to the most senior positions (nearly 1,200) require Senate confirmation. Throughout the 2020 presidential campaign, then candidate Joe Biden promised to select a diverse set of appointees. This article examines President Biden's commitment to this pledge as well as the pace at which the Senate confirmed his first tranche of appointees. To assess President Biden's performance during the first 300 days of his administration, I compare his record to his three immediate predecessors (Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump). The data reveal that while President Biden fulfilled his promise by appointing record numbers of women and non-Whites, the pace at which these appointees were confirmed was much slower than those of his three predecessors.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas Presidential Studies Quarterly

Senior Biden communications adviser to depart the White House

The staff turnover in Biden's first year marked "one of the lowest of the past six administrations," wrote Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who tracks the issue, in an analysis of Biden's first year.