Kimberlyn Leary is a senior fellow and senior advisor with Political Reform. Leary holds academic roles at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. She will join the faculty of the Harvard Kennedy School during the 2025 to 2026 academic year. At McLean Hospital (Harvard Medical School), she was the first Executive Director of the Center of Excellence in Women's Mental Health and chief psychologist at Cambridge Health Alliance. Leary began her career at the University of Michigan.
Leary has advised the White House under President Obama and President Biden. She was an adviser to the Obama White House Council on Women and Girls and a senior policy adviser to the Office of National Drug Control Policy. During the Biden-Harris transition, Leary was a part-time volunteer member on the agency review team for that office. At the Biden White House, on a temporary assignment from Urban, she was the first senior equity fellow at the Office of Management and Budget and a senior policy adviser to the Domestic Policy Council.
Additionally, Leary’s work as a scholar, practitioner, and educator focuses on government innovation, adaptive leadership, cross-boundary collaboration, and equity. She holds an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School and a PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan. She also has advanced training as a psychoanalyst from the Michigan Psychoanalytic Association.