Lisa McKinnon Munde

Veteran Fellow
Hoover Institution, Stanford University

Lisa Munde is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy and holds an MA in Latin American studies from Stanford University. She currently serves as the director of plans, doctrine, and studies at Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, California. She is a 2022-2023 Hoover Veteran Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where her work is focused on illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing by China’s distant-water fleets. Lisa served as a naval intelligence officer, is a Joint Targeting School graduate, and deployed aboard USS Nimitz and in support of Naval Special Warfare.

Lisa also leads PROJECT MARITIME for the Irregular Warfare Initiative, a joint effort between West Point’s Modern War Institute and Princeton’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project. This special project focuses on current events and their underlying geographical and historical patterns, recent changes to policy & doctrine, and emerging technologies to contextualize underlying drivers of conflict in the maritime dimension and promote dialogue toward integrated statecraft approaches.

Lisa has published academic work in the Stanford International Policy Review and written for War on the Rocks, Council on Foreign Relations, The Hill, Modern War Institute, and PanAm Post. In addition to her professional engagements Lisa is a U.S. Naval Academy Blue and Gold Officer and serves as a court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for foster youth in San Diego.