Ambassador Paula Dobriansky
- Areas of Expertise
- Board Members
Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky, a foreign policy expert and diplomat in national security affairs, is Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Vice Chair of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She is also Co-Chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Ukraine Economic Reconstruction Commission. From 2001-2009, Dobriansky served as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs. Among her primary accomplishments, she established and led the U.S.-India, U.S.-China, and U.S.-Brazil Global Issues Fora which advanced crucial work and international cooperation on environment, energy, health and humanitarian issues. In February 2007, as the President’s Envoy to Northern Ireland, she received the Secretary of State’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal, for her contribution to the historic devolution of power in Belfast.
Dobriansky has held many Senate-confirmed, senior-level positions in the U.S. government including Director of European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Deputy Head of the U.S. Delegation to the 1990 Copenhagen Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. From 1997-2001, she served as Senior Vice President and Director of the Council on Foreign Relations and was the first George F. Kennan Senior Fellow on Russian and Eurasian Studies.
As Senior Vice President and Global Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs at Thomson Reuters (2010-2012), Dobriansky was instrumental in the development of the company’s financial regulatory strategy. During this time, she was also appointed the Distinguished National Security Chair at the US Naval Academy.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Diplomacy, Dobriansky has served on the Defense Policy Board, the Secretary of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, and as Chair of the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank’s Council on China Competition. She is a Trustee of the Trilateral Commission and on Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service Advisory Board. Ambassador Dobriansky received a BSFS summa cum laude in international politics from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, as well as an MA and PhD in Soviet political and military affairs from Harvard University. She has received high-level international recognition from the governments of Poland, Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania, and Colombia and is the recipient of five honorary doctorate degrees.
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