Council of Councils
Think Global Health
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is pleased to welcome Jessica Brandt and Michael Werz to the David Rockefeller Studies Program, CFR’s think tank.
Ms. Brandt was the first director of the Foreign Malign Influence Center within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). As a senior fellow for technology and national security, her work will focus on the national security implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and the governance of emerging technologies. Ms. Brandt started her career at CFR, serving on the National Program and Outreach team from 2006 to 2009.
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Dr. Werz is a senior advisor for North America and multilateral affairs to the Munich Security Conference. His work focuses on the nexus of food security, climate change, migration, and emerging nations, especially China, Mexico, and Turkey. As a senior fellow, he will research, write, and hold a roundtable series on Europe and food security.
“I am delighted to welcome Jessica and Michael to our Studies Program,” said CFR President Michael Froman. “Jessica’s national security and technology expertise, alongside Michael’s wealth of knowledge on European foreign policy, multilateral affairs, and food security, will bolster CFR’s growing bench of leading subject matter experts.”
Jessica Brandt
As director of the Foreign Malign Influence Center at ODNI, Ms. Brandt led the U.S. intelligence community’s efforts to mitigate foreign influence threats, including during the 2024 U.S. election cycle. Reporting directly to the Director of National Intelligence, she stood up the center and spearheaded efforts to address AI-enabled foreign influence operations. She also revitalized engagement with the technology sector and implemented an innovative public communication strategy that earned bipartisan praise for its transparency and reach.
Prior to ODNI, she was policy director of the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative and a fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology at the Brookings Institution. She has also held leadership roles at the German Marshall Fund and the Brookings Institution focused on technology policy and international security.
She regularly testifies before Congress and briefs U.S. policymakers, technology leaders, and international officials on AI, foreign malign influence, and the national security implications of emerging technologies. Her work has appeared in outlets including the AP, BBC, CNN, Foreign Policy, NPR, New Yorker, Washington Post, Washington Quarterly, and Wired.
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Ms. Brandt holds a BA from Johns Hopkins University and an MA in public policy from Harvard University.
Michael Werz
Alongside his work for the Munich Security Conference, Dr. Werz is a member of the steering committee at the Center on Contemporary China and the World at the University of Hong Kong, a founding member of WP Intelligence’s council on global security, and the codirector of Nexus25.
Previously, he was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, where he worked on transatlantic foreign policy and the European Union. He has held appointments as a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center and as a John F. Kennedy memorial fellow at Harvard University’s Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies. He was also professor at Hannover University in Germany and at Georgetown University.
He has published numerous articles and several books dealing with a range of scholarly and political topics, including race and ethnicity in the twentieth century; Western social and intellectual history; minorities in Europe and the United States; and ethnic conflict, European politics, and anti-Americanism.
Dr. Werz holds an MA in philosophy, political science, and Latin American studies and a PhD in philosophy from Goethe University Frankfurt.