Cambridge, MA— The Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs will welcome nine Senior Fellows to the Harvard Kennedy School campus this spring between February and April 2018. All fellows will be actively engaged in Project programming, including chairing seminars with students, conducting research, and playing an active role in the intellectual life of the school.
“We are grateful that these outstanding public servants will contribute to the education of our students at the Kennedy School this semester,” said Nicholas Burns, Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations, and faculty director of the Future of Diplomacy Project. “They will help us build support for the importance of diplomacy in the world today and in the resolution of some of the world’s most pressing problems.”
In addition to hosting these nine Fellows, the Project will present events with Fu Ying, chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the People’s National Congress of China; Thomas Shannon, outgoing U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs; U.S. Senator Jack Reed MPP 1973, of Rhode Island; and Victoria Nuland, CEO of the Center for a New American Security and former U.S. assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
All events and activities relating to the fellows will be announced on the Project’s website.
Spring 2018 Fellows
Douglas Alexander is a returning non-resident Senior Fellow. Alexander was shadow foreign secretary for Her Majesty’s Official Opposition in the United Kingdom from 2011 until 2015. Currently, he serves as a visiting professor at King's College, London, and is a member of the European Council of Foreign Relations. In November 2015, Alexander was appointed senior adviser to singer-songwriter and social justice advocate Bono.
Robert Danin is a returning non-resident Senior Fellow. Danin is also a Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Previously, he headed the Jerusalem Mission of the Quartet representative, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, from April 2008 until August 2010.
Paula J. Dobriansky is a returning non-resident Senior Fellow. Dobriansky is chair of the National Board of Directors of the World Affairs Councils of America, and vice chair of the National Executive Committee of the U.S. Water Partnership. From 2010 to 2012, she was senior vice president and global head of government and regulatory affairs at Thomson Reuters.
Douglas Lute is a returning non-resident Senior Fellow. He served as the U.S. permanent representative to NATO from 2013 until 2017. A career Army officer, Lute retired from active duty in 2010 as a lieutenant general after 35 years of service. In 2007, President George W. Bush named him as assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser to coordinate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dina H. Powell is a non-resident Senior Fellow. Powell served as deputy national security adviser for Strategy and Senior Counselor for Economic Initiatives in the Trump Administration from January to December 2017. She spent more than a decade at Goldman Sachs where she was a partner and served as global head of the firm’s impact investment business.
Peter Ricketts is a Fisher Family Fellow (in residence in April 2018) and a life peer in the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. Ricketts has spent 40 years as a member of the diplomatic service. His final post was as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to France from 2012 until 2016. Ricketts served as the United Kingdom’s first national security adviser from 2010 until 2012, and in that role was the coordinator of the 2010 National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review.
John Sawers is a Fisher Family Fellow (in residence in February and March 2018). He was chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, from 2009 to 2014, a period of international upheaval and growing security threats, as well as closer public scrutiny of the intelligence agencies. Prior to that, Sawers served as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the United Nations from 2007 until 2009.
Radoslaw (Radek) Sikorski is a Fisher Family Fellow (in residence in April 2018). He holds the title of “distinguished statesman” at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and is a senior adviser at the Eurasia Group. He was previously a senior figure in Polish politics, serving as speaker of Poland’s lower house of parliament, as foreign minister from 2007 until 2014, and as defense minister from 2005 until 2007.
Jake Sullivan is a returning non-resident Senior Fellow. He also serves as Martin R. Flug Visiting Lecturer in Law at Yale Law School. He served in the Obama administration as national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State, and as deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The work of the Fisher Family Fellows at Harvard Kennedy School is made possible through The Richard and Nancy Fisher Family Fellows Program, created in 2010 by Nancy and Richard W. Fisher AB 1971, long-time supporters of Harvard University’s international engagement and teaching. Fellows spend time on campus for up to a month in residence. Senior Fellows are non-resident experts who work closely with the directors of the Future of Diplomacy Project and engage with students, faculty, and fellows as part of shorter-term visits each semester.