Brian R. Braun

Resident Program Director, Sri Lanka

Brian R. Braun joined the International Republican Institute (IRI) in 2013 and currently serves as Resident Program Director, Sri Lanka, based in Colombo where he manages IRI’s elections support, political party training and youth civic engagement programming.

Brian is a governance specialist with over ten years of experience designing, advising and implementing political party, elections, and voter education programs in Egypt, Tunisia, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Cambodia and elsewhere. He has led several field technical assessments and impact evaluations to support program design, adaptation and learning. Brian also has extensive experience in public opinion research, including national opinion polls and focus group discussions, and has piloted several innovative initiatives, such as predictive data modeling and online intercept surveys.

Prior to this, Brian served as the Kuala Lumpur-based Resident Program Director, Malaysia, where he built out the Institute’s portfolio of political party, youth, and open government programming. From 2013-2019, he worked on several portfolios across IRI’s Middle East and North Africa division. Before joining IRI, Brian supported research and advocacy on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East at the Atlantic Council and the Project on Middle East Democracy. He holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in International Relations and German Studies from Cornell College.