Renuka Asha Rangappa (born November 15, 1974) ^[1] is an American lawyer, former FBI agent, senior lecturer at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, and a commentator on MSNBC and CNN. She was previously an associate dean at Yale Law School. ^[2] She is serving as a senior lecturer at Yale Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. ^[3] Rangappa is also a member of the board of editors of Just Security. ^[4]

Early life

Rangappa was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to parents from Karnataka, India, ^[5] who immigrated to the US in 1970. She told Elle that her parents "came under a provision where the government was specially looking for doctors," under the 1965 Hart-Celler Act. ^[6] Her father is an anesthesiologist and worked at a Virginia army base. ^[6] Her mother is an accountant. ^[6] As a child she participated in beauty pageants. ^[6]

Rangappa grew up in Hampton, Virginia, ^[6] and graduated from Kecoughtan High School. She graduated cum laude with an A.B. from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs in 1996 after completing a 136-page long senior thesis, titled "The Rule of Law: Reconciling, Judicial Institution Building and U.S. Counternarcotics Policy in Colombia", under the supervision of John Dilulio. ^{[7] [8]} Following graduation, she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship, studying constitutional reform in Bogotá, Colombia. ^[6] She graduated from Yale Law School with a J.D. in 2000 and completed an internship with the US Attorneys office in Baltimore. ^{[6] [5]} and took a clerkship serving the Honorable Juan R. Torruella on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in San Juan, Puerto Rico. ^[9] In 2003 she was admitted to the state bars of New York and Connecticut. ^[10]

Career

In 2001, Rangappa began her FBI training in Quantico, Virginia. After graduation from Quantico Academy, she moved to New York City where she took a job as an FBI special agent, specializing in counterintelligence investigations, ^[9] and became one of the first Indian Americans to hold the position. ^{[11] [5]}

In 2005, Rangappa left the FBI to get married and have children. ^[5] She returned to Yale to become an associate dean of its law school. ^[12] Currently she serves as a director of admissions at Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. ^[13] She has taught at Yale University, ^[14] Wesleyan University, and University of New Haven, teaching National Security Law and related courses. ^[10]

She has published op-eds in HuffPost, ^[15] The Washington Post, ^[16] The New York Times, Time, ^[17] The Atlantic, ^[10] and The Wall Street Journal. ^[18] She has appeared on MSNBC, BBC, NPR, ^[19] and other networks as a commentator. She serves as a legal and national security analyst for CNN. ^{[20] [21]}

Rangappa is a member of the board of directors for the South Asian Bar Association of Connecticut, ^[22] the Connecticut Society of Former FBI Agents, ^[22] and the Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame.

Personal life

Rangappa was previously married to a fellow FBI agent, Andrew Dodd, in 2005; they later divorced in 2011. She lives in Hamden, Connecticut, with her son and daughter. ^{[5] [23]}

References

External links

• Profile at Yale Law School
• Personal website