COL Heidi B. Demarest Associate Professor Department Head Department of Social Sciences heidi.demarest [at] westpoint.edu About Education Research & Publications COL Heidi Demarest is the Head of the Department of Social Sciences (SOSH)and an associate professor of American politics. She is a 2001 graduate of the United States Military Academy and completed her Ph.D. in political science at Harvard University in 2011. COL Demarest served as the Deputy Head of SOSH for five years, as director of the American Politics program from 2015-19, and as the U.S. Military Academy’s Liaison Officer to the Department of the Army in the Pentagon in 2018-19. She was the Deputy Brigade Commander of the Army’s offensive cyber brigade at Ft. Meade, MD, from 2013-15. COL Demarest has served as the military assistant to the Combined Joint Task Force Political Advisor in Afghanistan and commanded a company of soldiers responsible for emplacing and maintaining the National Security Agency’s classified communications networks. She pursues research interests in defense budgeting, defense acquisition practices, bureaucratic politics, and the interaction between the Army and Congress. Ph.D. - Harvard UniversityM.A. - Harvard UniversityB.S. - U.S. Military Academy Research Interests Defense budgeting, bureaucratic politics, Congressional oversight Current Research Executive vs. legislative power of the purse Selected Publications Demarest, Heidi B., Tyler Jost, and Robert Schub (2024). "Bureaucracy and Cyber Coercion," International Studies Quarterly 68, https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqad103.Demarest, Heidi Brockmann. “The Role of Congress.” In Resourcing National Security, edited by Susan Bryant and Mark Troutman. New York: Cambria Press, 2022.Demarest, Heidi Brockmann and Erica Borghard, eds. US National Security Reform: Reassessing the National Security Act of 1947. New York: Routledge, 2018.Demarest, Heidi Brockmann. US Defense Budget Outcomes: Volatility and Predictability in Army Weapons Funding. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2017.Brockmann, Heidi A. and Scott Handler. “Cyberspace: Governing the Global Commons.” Thinking Beyond Boundaries: Transnational Challenges to U.S. Foreign Policy. Ed. John Griswold et.al. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.Brockmann, Heidi A. “Should U.S. Defense Spending be Reduced Dramatically?” Taking Sides: Clashing Views in American Foreign Policy, 6th ed. Ed. Suzanne C. Nielsen and Scott P. Handler. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013.Brockmann, Heidi A., James T. Golby, and Michael L. Harrison, eds. To Uphold and Defend: An American Politics Companion. New York: McGraw-Hill Education, 2013.