Invited Policy Experts
Nora Bensahel (bensahel "at" rand.org)
Dr. Nora Bensahel is a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND corporation.
Her expertise are in post-conflict reconstruction, military strategy,
Middle East security, and military coalitions. Nora earned her Ph.D.
in Political Science from Stanford University in 1999, and her B.A.
in Government and Russian Studies from Cornell University in 1993.
Her recent work has examined post-conflict reconstruction in Afghanistan
and Iraq, military coalitions, and multilateral intervention. Her recent
publications include The Counterterror Coalitions: Cooperation with
Europe, NATO, and the European Union, and The Future Security
Environment in the Middle East. She has held fellowships at the
Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University,
and the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.
She also serves as an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program
at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.
Daniel Cruise (dcruise "at" cwnyc.com)
Daniel Cruise joined the consulting firm of Clark and Weinstock as
a Managing Director in 2001 after four years in the Clinton Administration.
At Clark and Weinstock, Mr. Cruise specializes in public affairs,
investor relations and financial communications for a wide range
of domestic and international clients.
Before joining the firm, Mr. Cruise worked at the White House as Assistant
Press Secretary for Foreign Affairs and Director of Public Affairs
for the National Security Council. Mr. Cruise also worked at the Department
of Commerce's International Trade Administration as Public Affairs
Director. Prior to his time in the Clinton Administration, Mr. Cruise
worked for JP Morgan covering hedge funds on the foreign currency sales
desk.
Mr. Cruise is a graduate of Brown University and the University of
Cambridge, holding Bachelor of Arts and Master of Philosophy degrees
respectively. He also holds a French Baccalaureate in Economics.
Mr. Cruise was a Term Member at the Council on Foreign Relations,
serves on the Board of a number of non-profit organizations, and was
a senior foreign policy adviser to Senator John Kerry's Presidential
campaign. He has appeared on several television news programs on MSNBC,
Fox News and MTV and has participated in dozens of radio talk shows
across the country.
William J. Dobson (wdobson "at" carnegieendowment.org)
William J. Dobson is the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine.
He is responsible for managing the editorial planning and editorial
production of the magazine, as well as editing and commissioning
feature articles, reviews, and essays. Prior to joining FP, he served
as Newsweek International's senior editor for Asia and as an
associate editor at Foreign Affairs. While at Newsweek, he supervised
coverage that was honored for overall general excellence by the Society
of Asia Publishers in 2003 and 2004.
He has published widely on Asia and international relations and was
named a 2004 New Asian Leader by the World Economic Forum—the
only Westerner to receive such recognition.
He is a frequent guest for CNN, National Public Radio, and others,
providing commentary on Lou Dobss Tonight, Insight with Jonathan Mann,
and On Point. He has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
Boston Globe, and The New Republic, among other publications.
Saskia Reilly (sreilly "at" cfr.org)
Saskia Reilly is an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on
Foreign Relations. She most recently served as the chief-of-staff
at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations where she focused on policy
development and management issues. Ms. Reilly's expertise centers
on political issues surrounding the European Union, U.S. foreign
policy, and the United Nations, as well as HIV/AIDS and issues related
to gender. Prior to her role as chief-of-staff, she served as a staff
assistant to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke during his tenure as Permanent
Representative of the United States to the United Nations.
From 1994-1997, she worked as a journalist and editor for Liberation/World
Media Network in France and as a writer/editor in Italy. In 2003, Ms.
Reilly received a Superior Honor Award from the U.S. Department of
State, and in 2002 she was acknowledged as an “Innovator in Public
Service” by the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard
University. Ms. Reilly received her B.S. in French from Georgetown
University and her M.P.P. in international security policy from the
John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Ms. Reilly
is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Political Scientists
Naazneen Barma (naaz "at" berkeley.edu)
Naazneen Barma is a doctoral candidate in the Political Science Department
at UC Berkeley, with a BA and MA from Stanford University. Her dissertation
is a study of externally-supported efforts at building democracy
and reconstructing state capacity in post-conflict countries. Naazneen
examines the interaction of United Nations-led peace-building authorities
with the domestic political environment in Afghanistan, Cambodia,
and East Timor. She argues that while the United Nations template
for post-conflict intervention has evolved over time with successive
experiences, peace-building processes and outcomes inevitably adapt
to local circumstances.
Naazneen's broader research and policy interests lie in exploring
how different types of governance mechanisms affect political stability
and economic development. Prior to graduate school, she worked at the
World Bank on public sector reform and institution-building in developing
countries. She has worked in the field on civil service and governance
reform projects in several countries in East and South Asia. Naazneen
is particularly interested in the causes and consequences of state
failure, and potential international policy responses to this contemporary
phenomenon.
Michael J. Boyle (michael_boyle "at" ksg.harvard.edu)
Michael Boyle is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science
and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University. Previously, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the
Australian National University and a predoctoral fellow at Stanford
University. He holds an M.Phil and Ph.D. in International Relations
from Cambridge University and an MPP from the Kennedy School of Government
at Harvard University. He also holds a BA in Political Science
and English literature from La Salle University.
Dr. Boyle's research interests combine international security
with American foreign policy, with a special focus on violence, terrorism
and peacekeeping in collapsed states. He is currently developing his
dissertation on post-conflict revenge violence into a book manuscript
and working on a series of articles on the future of American foreign
policy after Iraq. He has worked for the U.S. Department of State and
the Center for Strategic and International Studies and served as a
consultant for a number of projects at the Centre for Defence Studies
at King's College, London. He is currently involved as a principal
member of the Truman Democrats.
Joshua Busby (jbusby "at" princeton.edu)
Joshua Busby is a Fellow at the Center for Globalization and Governance
in the Woodrow Wilson School. He is currently working on a book manuscript,
entitled States of Grace: Moral Movements and Foreign Policy. Prior
to coming to Princeton, Dr. Busby was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow
with Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
in the International Security Program. In 2003-2004, he served as
a research fellow at the Brookings Institution in the Foreign Policy
Studies program. He defended his dissertation with distinction from
Georgetown University in summer 2004 where he also earned his M.A.
in 2002.
Dr. Busby also has a regional interest in Latin America, having served
in the Peace Corps in Ecuador (1997-1999), worked in Nicaragua
(Summer 1994, Spring 1996), and consulted for the Inter-American Development
Bank (2000). Prior to the Peace Corps, Josh was a Marshall Scholar
at the University of East Anglia (Norwich, England) where he completed
a second B.A.(with Honors) in Development Studies (1993-1995).
He completed his first B.A. (with Highest Distinction) at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Political Science and Biology.
His research interests also include U.S. grand strategy, energy security,
and the foreign policy of advanced industrialized countries. Dr. Busby
is a Term Member in the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of
the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Dara Kay Cohen (dkcohen "at" stanford.edu)
Dara Cohen is a PhD candidate in political science at Stanford University
and a fellow and research assistant at the Center for International
Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford. Her research involves
studying the politics of national security; she currently is examining
the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and how U.S. public
opinion changed after the September 11 attacks.
Dara previously worked for two years at the U.S. Department of Justice
as a paralegal in the Outstanding Scholars Program in the Counterterrorism
Section and spent a summer at the U.S. Embassy in London, where she
focused on terrorist financing issues. She received her BA with honors
in political science and philosophy from Brown University in 2001.
Brent Durbin (durbinb "at" berkeley.edu)
Brent graduated magna cum laude (English Literature and Politics) from
Oberlin College in 1995. After college he helped run a congressional
campaign in his hometown district in Washington state. He then completed
an MPP at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, focusing on international
development and American politics. Subsequent to that he worked as
a media consultant and then press secretary for Senator Patty Murray.
Brent is now a fourth year in the political science Ph.D. program
at Berkeley. His research interests fall at the intersection of American
politics and national security policy, and his dissertation addresses
political oversight of US and UK intelligence agencies. The specific
goal of the project is to understand and explain the peculiar principal-agent
relationships that exist among elected officials and intelligence services.
He is currently overseas on an exchange with Pembroke College, Cambridge.
Patrick Gaughen (prg3 "at" duke.edu)
Patrick Guaghen is a first-year graduate student in political science
at Duke. His research interests include civil-military relations theory,
determinants of military effectiveness, and Middle Eastern comparative
politics. Before coming to Duke, Patrick worked as a research analyst
at the Department of Defense and studied Arabic in Cairo. He holds
a B.A. in History and Political Science from Yale and an M.A. in Security
Studies from Georgetown.
Brian Grodsky (bgrodsky "at" mail.umich.edu)
Brian Grodsky is a PhD candidate in political science at University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he received his MA in 2002. He received
a BA from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Brian's dissertation
is titled "Exploring Determinants of Transitional Justice: Human
Rights Accountability in Post-Communist States" and involves
two years of fieldwork in Uzbekistan, Serbia, Croatia and Poland.
Brian's research interests include US foreign policy, human rights,
transitional justice, democratization, international organizations,
social movements and global civil society.
Before returning to academia, Brian served as a Political Economic
Officer at US Embassy Tashkent, where he worked on issues concerning
human rights, refugees, weapons non-proliferation and trade policy.
Prior to this post, Brian was an Economic/Consular Officer at US Embassy
Warsaw. Before beginning government service Brian worked as a reporter
for a local English language newspaper in Warsaw, Poland.
Dafna Hochman (dvh2001 "at" columbia.edu)
Dafna, a political science PhD student at Columbia, studies international
relations and comparative politics. Her research focuses on U.S.
alliances with Middle Eastern states and democratization and reform
in the Middle East. She received her BA from Harvard University.
Dafna served as a graduate fellow in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs,
U.S. Department of State. She is the former senior legislative assistant
for foreign and defense policy to U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (NJ).
Prior to her work in the Senate, Dafna conducted research on terrorism,
international law, and Iraq at the Council on Foreign Relations and
was a contributing writer for its on-line site, Questions and Answers.
Stephen Kaplan (stephen.kaplan "at" yale.edu)
Stephen Kaplan is a third year Ph.D. student at Yale University, specializing
in the politics of international finance and economic development
in emerging market countries. While at Yale, Kaplan has worked for
the last two years as a research assistant to Former Mexican President
Ernesto Zedillo, the Director of the Yale Center for the Study of
Globalization. In this capacity, he has prepared background papers
and briefings on the Global Trade Architecture, the U.N. Millennium
Project, and the Financing of International Economic Development.
Before returning to academia, Kaplan served as a senior economic researcher
in the Developing Studies and Foreign Research Division of the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York. His responsibilities included authoring quarterly
papers on the macroeconomic and policy outlook for Latin America and
Asia and conducting research projects on political cycles in fiscal
and monetary policy formation, the politics of international trade,
the global technology cycle, and balance of payment crises. Prior to
his work at the Fed, Kaplan received a masters degree in international
economic development from the Georgetown School of Foreign Service
and a bachelors degree in international relations and economics from
Tufts University.
Sarah Elizabeth Kreps (krepss "at" georgetown.edu)
Sarah Kreps is currently a senior fellow at the Institute of International
Law and Politics at Georgetown University where she is pursuing her
Ph.D. She is also currently an adjunct professor at George Washington
University's Elliott School of International Affairs. She received
an undergraduate degree in environmental science and public policy
from Harvard University and a master's degree in international
environmental policy from Oxford University.
Before coming to Washington DC, she served as an active duty officer
in the United States Air Force, working as a foreign area officer and
acquisition specialist. She is a currently a captain in the reserves
where she works as a Western European desk officer in the office of
the Secretary of the Air Force for International Affairs. Ms. Kreps
does strategic consulting for both the Department of Defense and State.
Her research interests include US foreign policy, intelligence, alliance
behavior, and defense policy.
Mathew Kroenig (kroenig "at" Berkeley.edu)
Matthew Kroenig is a PhD candidate in political science at UC Berkeley.
His dissertation explains why states provide sensitive nuclear assistance
to nonnuclear weapons states. Arguing against the primacy of economic
motivations, Kroenig finds a simple, yet powerful, strategic logic
underlying patterns of sensitive nuclear cooperation.
Kroenig formerly served as a strategist in the Office of the Secretary
of Defense were he was a principal author of the Department's
contribution to the National Security Strategy, and where he developed
a U.S. government-wide strategy for deterring terrorist networks. For
his work, Kroenig received the Department of Defense's Award
for Outstanding Achievement. Kroenig has also worked as a military
analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.
Genevieve Lester (glester "at" berkeley.edu)
Genevieve Lester is currently a PhD student in Political Science at
UC, Berkeley. Her areas of focus are international relations and security
issues, with an emphasis on intelligence and decision-making. Prior
to her studies she was a research fellow at the International Institute
for Strategic Studies (IISS)—U.S. where she worked on a joint
IISS/Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory project that focused on
risk analysis, terrorism, and decision-making. The goal of the project
was to extrapolate from the analytical methodologies used by the engineering
and science communities to assist decision-makers with security policy
decisions.
Before her work with IISS, Genevieve was an editor of the British
academic journal, International Affairs, based at the Royal
Institute of International Affairs in London. She holds an MA from
the Johns Hopkins University—School of Advanced International
Studies—and a BA from Carleton College.
William Norris (wjnorris "at" mit.edu)
William Norris is currently
a doctoral candidate in the Security Studies Program in the Department
of Political Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His
research concerns the strategic relationship between economics and
national security. Recent work examines how states can successfully
use economic power to achieve their security objectives. Specifically,
he has explored issues relating to the use of private sector actors
to achieve national foreign policy objectives in the context of the
Taiwan-Mainland China relationship.
Before returning to academia, Will was deputy director of Business
Executives for National Security in their New York office. He has also
worked at McKinsey & Co and was a Luce Scholar in Taipei. His policy
work has included projects with the UK Ministry of Defence and the
French Senat. Will graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University
concentrating in economics and politics.
Ben Oppenheim (ben.oppenheim "at" gmail.com)
Ben Oppenheim earned his BA from Wesleyan University, followed by a
master's degree from the London School of Economics. His main research
interests lie at the intersection of development and security studies,
and include complex emergencies, humanitarian aid, and UN policymaking.
Recently he has become interested in forecasting and risk analysis.
Before coming to UC Berkeley, Ben worked as an independent consultant
on projects including analyses of recipient perceptions of humanitarian
aid, and an assessment of emerging social and
technological trends. Ben's volunteer experience includes program design
for an international NGO, and an internship in the UN Development Group
Office.
David Palkki (dpalkki "at" yahoo.com )
David Palkki is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Political
Science at UCLA. He graduated from Brigham Young University with
a B.A. in political science with minors in history and German. His
research focuses on counterproliferation and preventive war theory,
while he is more generally interested in nuclear proliferation issues
and theories of war causation.
After graduating from BYU, Palkki spent two years in Washington, D.C.,
working for the U.S. House of Representatives as a staff assistant
on the Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee. Palkki worked in Germany
and Switzerland for two years before beginning college, and has returned
to Europe to work as a polling station supervisor in Kosovo and as
an election observer in Serbia, Bosnia, and Moldova for the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has completed internships
in the Washington, D.C. area with the U.S. Government, Amnesty International,
and in U.S. Representative Mike Simpson's office.
Ely Ratner (ely "at" berkeley.edu)
Ely Ratner is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political
Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His dissertation
analyzes the long-term strategic consequences of US support for authoritarian
regimes. He received his B.A. from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton
University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa. He has also held research
positions at the RAND corporation and the Center for the Study of
International Organization.
Ely worked as a Professional Staff Member on the Democratic staff of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. There he was responsible for
covering the Middle East, specifically Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. He has also worked in the political office of Senator Joseph
Biden, and on the presidential campaigns of Bill Clinton and Al Gore.
Frank Smith (flsmith "at" uchicago.edu)
Frank Smith is a Ph.D. student in political science at the University
of Chicago, studying international relations and national security
policy. His dissertation compares military science and technology
with civilian research and development in biodefense. He has a B.S.
in biological chemistry, and he has worked for the Defense Intelligence
Agency, Argonne National Laboratory, and the RAND Corporation.
Tom Wright (twright "at" princeton.edu)
Tom Wright is research director for the Princeton Project in National
Security, a research fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Center for
Science and International Affairs, and a doctoral candidate in international
relations at Georgetown University. He holds an M Phil in international
studies from Cambridge University and a MA and BA from University College
Dublin. For the past three years Tom has acted as rapporteur for a
National Intelligence Council study group on unipolarity. His interests
include grand strategy and U.S. foreign policy, transatlantic relations,
deterrence, and IR theory.
Lili Zhang (lzhang "at" fas.harvard.edu)
Lili Zhang is pursuing a
Ph.D. at the Department of Government at Harvard University; her major
field is International Relations. She holds a B.A. from the University
of Oxford, where she studied PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics),
and an M.A. in East Asian Studies from Yale University. She has worked
in a variety of public and private sector settings in the U.S. and
Asia, including the Federal Communications Commission, development
consulting to the World Bank and private companies, the ESL teaching
environment and the finance sector. Prior to returning to school at
Harvard, she lived and worked in NYC as a hedge fund analyst.
Her research interests include: the rise of China, the intersection
between domestic and international politics and the exploration of
domestic constraints on foreign policy, in particular the role of nationalism
and identity, and political theory topics in international ethics.
She hopes to be spending this summer doing research in the Middle East
to examine the relationship between public opinion and recent Israeli
foreign policy.
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