Dan Lips

Head of Policy

Bio

Dan Lips is Head of Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, where he manages the policy research team. Dan has well over two decades of experience working in public policy, and has built up deep expertise in K-12 education policy, congressional oversight, as well as cyber and national security policy.

Prior to FAI, from 2011 to 2019, Dan worked on the staff of the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, including serving as the majority staff’s homeland security policy director. His legislative accomplishments include bipartisan legislation to modernize federal information security management and to authorize the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity programs. He also focused on Congressional oversight and served on the staff of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He was the lead staff author of former Sen. Tom Coburn’s final oversight report: A Review of the Department of Homeland Security’s Missions and Performance, which was featured on 60 Minutes. He also led a bipartisan investigation into how the U.S. immigration system encourages child marriages, which received global coverage in 2019.

Before working on Capitol Hill, Dan served with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, focusing on cybersecurity and intelligence. From 2000 to 2010, he worked for federal and state think tanks, concentrating primarily on education policy, including serving as a senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation. He testified before the House of Representatives in 2007 on improving educational opportunities for foster children. His research has been cited by the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post. He has served as a member of the D.C. Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He was a 2018–19 Penn Kemble Democracy Forum Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy. He is a visiting fellow with the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in Politics from Princeton University and his master’s degree in Statecraft and National Security Affairs from the Institute of World Politics.