Class of 1950 Senior Foreign Affairs Fellows

Esther Brimmer is the James H. Binger senior fellow in global governance at the Council of Foreign Relations (CFR). Her primary areas of interest are international organizations and transatlantic relations. At CFR, she is writing a book about the need to craft new mechanisms of governance to manage human activities in outer space. She served as project director for CFR's task force report, Arctic Imperatives: Reinforcing U.S. Strategy on America's Fourth Coast. From 2017 through 2022, Brimmer was executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the largest nonprofit professional association dedicated to international education with around 10,000 members in over 160 countries. She previously led U.S. policy in international organizations as the assistant secretary of state for International Organization Affairs from 2009 to 2013 and served on the policy planning staff from 1999 to 2001. Brimmer was the J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro professor at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. She was the first deputy director and director of research at the Center for Transatlantic Relations (CTR) at the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies from 2001 to 2009. While at CTR, Brimmer was also a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. Brimmer has published numerous articles and edited eight books on transatlantic relations, including Defending the Gains? Transatlantic Responses When Democracy Is Under Threat; Changing Identities, Enduring Values: Is There Still a Transatlantic Community?; and The Strategic Implications of EU Enlargement (with Stefan Fröhlich). Brimmer received her bachelor's degree from Pomona College and master's degree and doctorate from Oxford University.  She is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Hanna Tetteh serves as the UN Secretary General's Special Representative for the Horn of Africa. In her talk she addresses some of the particularly challenging peace and security issues in the region, particularly recent events in Sudan, South Sudan, and Ethiopia. She also reflects on multilateral efforts to build an effective partnership between the UN and the African Union, as well as with other sub-regional organisations. 

Philip Zelikow in conversation with Kendall Hoyt in connection with the launch of the Covid Crisis Group's report, "Lessons from the Covid War."

Do diplomats have the right tools for today's crises? Former U.S. Ambassador Bisa Williams has been on the front lines of diplomacy and now leads challenging mediation efforts in Mali and West Africa for the Carter Center, building off her decades as a U.S diplomat across Africa, Latin America, and the United Nations. Join us for a conversation about what she thinks works, what doesn't work, and whether we have the right approach to current crises. She will discuss her experiences as an American diplomat and give a behind the scenes perspective on life with the US foreign service and how the US could modernize its approaches.

Change in the Arctic is happening very quickly, driven by both climate change and international interest in the region as it becomes more accessible. Frances Ulmer talks about what's changing, and how those changes are altering ecosystems and impacting people in the Arctic and beyond.  

Frances Ulmer is a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center. She has served in a variety of capacities, including: Chancellor of the University of Alaska Anchorage, Alaska's Lieutenant Governor, state legislator, mayor of Juneau, Alaska, professor, lawyer, research director, special advisor to the State Department on the Arctic and Chair of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. She has undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin, and has been a visiting professor at Stanford, and at Harvard's Institute of Politics. She has lectured internationally on Arctic issues from Antarctica to the North Pole. 

Bill Burns is president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the oldest international affairs think tank in the United States. Ambassador Burns retired from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2014 after a thirty-three-year diplomatic career. He holds the highest rank in the Foreign Service, career ambassador, and is only the second serving career diplomat in history to become deputy secretary of state.

Prior to his tenure as deputy secretary, Ambassador Burns served from 2008 to 2011 as under secretary for political affairs. He was ambassador to Russia from 2005 to 2008, assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 2001 to 2005, and ambassador to Jordan from 1998 to 2001. His other posts in the Foreign Service include: executive secretary of the State Department and special assistant to former secretaries of state Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright; minister-counselor for political affairs at the U.S. embassy in Moscow; acting director and principal deputy director of the State Department's policy planning staff; and special assistant to the president and senior director for Near East and South Asian affairs at the National Security Council.

Lisa Monaco served as Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor to President Barack Obama from 2013-2017. In this role Monaco coordinated policy development and crisis response to terrorist attacks, cyber incidents, public health emergencies and natural disasters. Prior to the White House, Monaco served in senior positions at the Department of Justice including as Assistant Attorney General for National Security and Chief of Staff to FBI Director Robert Mueller. She currently serves as Distinguished Senior Fellow at New York University Law School and as Senior Fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Dickey Center Director Daniel Benjamin moderates a discussion with the former director of National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) Matt Olsen. They touch on a wide range of issues including the recent terrorist attacks in Europe. Mr. Olsen directed NCTC from 2011 to 2014.