CFR Experts

The Council’s experts are based in the Council’s New York and Washington offices. Our experts bear a variety of different titles:

  • Senior fellows are experienced scholars and practitioners who have spent considerable time in the academic, government, or private sectors.
  • Fellows are younger scholars near the start of their careers.
  • Visiting fellows are experts who have taken a leave from their university, military service, government agency, news organization, or firm to spend time at the Council doing research.
  • Adjunct fellows are usually scholars at major universities who work on Council projects on a part-time basis.

Below you will find an alphabetical listing of our experts. You can also view our staff’s expertise by issue or region by selecting the appropriate link below. In addition to this sorting control, you can also search for specific subjects within the alphabetical, regional, and issue categories by choosing from the selections in the drop-down menu below.

Each expert’s bio page contains his or her contact information, professional and educational history, links to publications and current research, a downloadable one-page biographical narrative, and a high-definition photo.

A

Elliott Abrams

Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies

Former senior director for democracy and human rights, senior director for the Near East, and deputy national security adviser handling Middle East affairs in the George W. Bush administration. Former assistant secretary of state for UN affairs, human rights, and Latin America in the Reagan administration.

Daniel P. Ahn

Adjunct Fellow for Energy

Director and senior strategist for commodity cross-asset strategy at Citigroup and adjunct assistant professor at Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs. Current research focuses energy, finance, and international economics.

Edward Alden

Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow

Former Washington bureau chief at the Financial Times. Recently co-directed the Independent Task Force on U.S. Trade and Investment Policy and was the project director for the Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy. Latest book, The Closing of the American Border, examines U.S. visa and border policies in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Atul Arya

Adjunct Senior Fellow for Energy

Vice president of energy research at IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates (IHS CERA). Current work focuses on energy and national security issues.

B

Mohamad Bazzi

Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies

Journalism professor at New York University. Former Middle East bureau chief at Newsday. Currently working on a project about sectarian politics in the Middle East.

John B. Bellinger III

Adjunct Senior Fellow for International and National Security Law

Partner at Arnold & Porter, LLP. Former legal adviser for the U.S. Department of State and National Security Council. Currently directing a roundtable series on international and national security law.

Robert D. Blackwill

Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy

Former deputy assistant to the president, deputy national security adviser for strategic planning, and presidential envoy to Iraq under George W. Bush. U.S. Ambassador to India from 2001 to 2003. Current work focuses on American foreign policy writ large as well as American foreign policy toward India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Thomas Bollyky

Senior Fellow for Global Health, Economics, and Development

Expert on legal and regulatory issues in global health, technological innovation and delivery, and international trade. Adjunct professor of law, former U.S. trade negotiator. Currently directing a roundtable series on Global Health, Economics, and Development.

Karen Brooks

Adjunct Senior Fellow for Asia

Former director for Asian affairs on the staff of the National Security Council. Leading architect of U.S. policy toward Indonesia during the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Currently directing a roundtable series that focuses on Asia.

C

John Campbell

Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies

Career Foreign Service officer and former ambassador to Nigeria. Political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria during South Africa's first non-racial elections. His book Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink was published by Rowman & Littlefield in November 2010.

Blake Clayton

Fellow for Energy and National Security

Former private sector oil analyst and instructor in finance and economics at Oxford University. Current research focuses on energy security and policy, global commodities markets, and natural resource economics.

Jared Cohen

Adjunct Senior Fellow

Director of Google Ideas, Google Inc. Former member of the policy planning staff under both Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton.

Jerome A. Cohen

Adjunct Senior Fellow for Asia Studies

Internationally renowned expert on the Chinese legal system and professor at NYU School of Law. Current work examines the rule of law in Asian countries.

Isobel Coleman

Senior Fellow and Director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative; Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program

Author of the book Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East (Random House, 2010). Contributing author to Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President (Brookings Institution Press, 2008). Coauthor of Strategic Foreign Assistance: Civil Society in International Security (Hoover Institution Press, 2006).

D

Robert M. Danin

Eni Enrico Mattei Senior Fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies

Former head, Office of the Quartet Representative, Tony Blair, in Jerusalem. Former State Department and National Security Council official with over twenty years government experience specializing in the Middle East. Currently researching and writing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Arab uprisings, and U.S. interests in the Middle East. Advises Quartet Representative Tony Blair.