The Burn Bag Podcast Creators & Guests

Jeff Kosseff is a cybersecurity law professor at the United States Naval Academy.

Garrett M. Graff is a journalist, historian, and author. He is a contributing editor at WIRED Magazine and Longreads, covering cybersecurity, national security, and federal law enforcement. He is also the director of Cyber Initiatives at The Aspen Institute. He appears on CNN to discuss the FBI and national security matters.Previously, Graff was an editor of Politico Magazine, editor-in-chief of Washingtonian magazine, and a Journalism instructor at Georgetown University.Graff has written seven nonfiction books about American history.Graff received his B.A. in History from Harvard University.

Glenn S. Gerstell is a lawyer and technology writer. Currently, he is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, where he writes on technology and national security matters.From 2015 to 2020, Gerstell served as the General Counsel of the United States National Security Agency (NSA). Before that, he was a member of the US National Infrastructure Advisory Council and a Commissioner of the Washington, D.C. Homeland Security Commission.Gerstell received his B.A. from New York University and his J.D. from Columbia University.

Dr. Jess Ghannam is a Palestinian-American psychologist and professor who is active in numerous non-governmental organizations and in carrying out humanitarian work, particularly in the Gaza Strip. He is a clinical professor and the Chief of Medical Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco, and also practices at the UCSF Helen Diller Comprehensive Cancer Center. Since the early 1990s, Ghannam has worked extensively in the field of medical development in the occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He co-hosts "Arab Talk with Jess and Jamal", a San Francisco Bay Area radio talk-show about Middle Eastern Affairs with fellow Palestinian-American commentator Jamal Dajani.

Dr. Sanam Vakil is a foreign policy analyst. Currently, she is the Deputy Head of the Middle East & North Africa Programme at Chatham House, where she leads project work on Iran and Gulf Arab dynamics. She is also a Lecturer at Johns Hopkins University.Vakil's first book, "Women and Politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Action and Reaction," was published in 2013.Vakil received her M.A. in International Relations & Economics and her Ph.D. in Ph.D, International Relations & Middle East Studies from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.