Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University’s JFK Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Vice Chair of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Previously, she was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs from 2010 to 2012 at Thomson Reuters.
She also held the Distinguished National Security Chair at the U.S. Naval Academy. From 2001-2009, Ambassador Dobriansky served as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs and in February 2007, was appointed the President’s Envoy on Northern Ireland.
She received the Secretary of State’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal for her work in these positions. Other government appointments include: Director of European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council (the White House); Associate Director for Policy and Programs at USIA, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and Deputy Head of the U.S. Delegation to the 1990 Copenhagen Conference on Security Cooperation in Europe.
From 1997-2001, she served on the Presidentially appointed U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Ambassador Dobriansky served as Senior Vice President and Director of the Washington Office of the Council on Foreign Relations and was the Council’s first George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies.
A member of the Defense Policy Board and the Secretary of State’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board, she has a B.S.F.S. summa cum laude from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Soviet political/military affairs from Harvard University.
