Abigail Rudolph is an assistant director of the Forward Defense program within the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She contributes to the program’s defense industry and technology portfolio, focusing on emerging technology and defense industrial base policy, and leads the program’s work on the Revitalizing US Shipbuilding Task Force. Her research spans US naval shipbuilding and the maritime industrial base, including in the Great Lakes Region, as well as allied defense industrial integration and capacity building among allies in the context of the war in Ukraine. She recently co-authored an analysis of the US Navy’s reclassification of Virginia-class submarines.
Rudolph previously worked at the Cleveland Council on World Affairs where she contributed to its foreign policy forums and committees on foreign relations. As an undergraduate, she co-authored an op-ed detailing net-zero carbon emissions pathways for Ohioans, and completed her senior thesis on an assessment of, and recommendations for bolstering, NATO’s China policy.
She graduated with honors from Baldwin Wallace University, earning a BA in national security with a minor in sustainability.