Undersecretary of State 2001-2009

Ambassador Paula J. Dobriansky, PhD. a foreign policy expert and diplomat specializing in national security affairs, is a Senior Fellow at Harvard University JFK Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Vice Chair of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.  She brings over thirty years of government and international experience across senior levels of diplomacy, business and defense.

From 2010 to 2012, she was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Government and Regulatory Affairs at Thomson Reuters, responsible for designing and implementing a corporate approach for engagement in Washington D.C. and other key capitals around the globe. She was instrumental in the development of Reuters’ financial regulatory strategy. During this time, she was also appointed the Distinguished National Security Chair at the U.S. Naval Academy. Presently, she serves on the board of Rubicon Technologies [NYSE: RBT] and the advisory board of Veracity Worldwide. 

Dobriansky served as Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs from 2001 to 2009. Among her primary accomplishments, she established and led the US-India, US-China, and US-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 US government, including Director of European and Soviet Affairs at the National Security Council, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, Associate Director for Policy and Programs at the United States Information Agency, and Deputy Head of the U.S. Delegation to the 1990 Copenhagen Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. From 1997 to 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. 

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the American Academy of Diplomacy, Dobriansky also 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 Trilateral Commission Trustee, a member of EXIM’s Advisory Subcommittee on Strategic Competition with the People’s Republic of China, and a member of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service Advisory Board.  Ambassador Dobriansky received a BSFS summa cum laude in international politics from Georgetown's School of Foreign Service and an MA and PhD in Soviet political/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 degrees.