Director Christopher Wray has named James E. Dennehy as the special agent in charge of the Intelligence and Surveillance Division of the New York Field Office. He most recently served as chief of staff in the National Security Branch at FBI Headquarters in Washington.

Mr. Dennehy has spent most of his FBI career in the New York Field Office. He joined the FBI as a special agent in 2002 and was assigned to the New York office to work counterintelligence cases. He also served in leadership roles on the SWAT team and was certified as a crisis management coordinator. In 2013, he was promoted to supervisory special agent of the counterintelligence and counter-proliferation squad in New York’s Hudson Valley and White Plains resident agencies.

In 2015, Mr. Dennehy served as unit chief in the Counterproliferation Center at FBI Headquarters and in 2016 was promoted to assistant section chief. In those roles, he guided the FBI’s efforts to combat attempts by foreign adversaries to obtain export-controlled, sensitive technologies related to weapons of mass destruction and missile, space, and conventional weapons systems.

Mr. Dennehy returned to the New York Field Office in 2017 as the assistant special agent in charge over crisis management, firearms, operations command, recruiting, private sector engagement, community outreach, and several other programs.

In 2018, he was promoted to chief of staff to the executive assistant director of the National Security Branch at FBI Headquarters. He also served as the section chief of the NSB’s Executive Staff Section. The NSB includes the Counterterrorism Division, the Counterintelligence Division, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, the Terrorist Screening Center, and the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group.

Mr. Dennehy earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Villanova University. After graduating, he served as an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps for seven years and deployed to Haiti, Liberia, and the Adriatic Sea. He received the FBI Director’s Award for Outstanding Counterintelligence Investigation, the Attorney General’s Award for Furthering the Interests of National Security, and numerous National Intelligence Meritorious Unit Citations.