Stern served on President Bill Clinton's National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1995 as the director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs.

[6] Stern is a research professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Boston University.

[12] The character of Dr. Julia Kelly in the 1997 film The Peacemaker was partly based on Stern's work at the National Security Council.

[13] In an article published in The Washington Post on 20 June 2010, Stern revealed that she believes the reason for her fascination with terrorism is due to terror that she experienced in her own life when she and her sister were raped at gunpoint by an intruder when Stern was aged 15 (her sister a year younger).

She also ascribes her lack of a normal fear reaction to this event and subsequently, which has been suggested to her by a therapist is due to post traumatic stress disorder.