Milan Vaishnav is a senior fellow and director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His primary research focus is the political economy of India, and he examines issues such as corruption and governance, state capacity, distributive politics, and electoral behavior. He is the author of When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics (Yale University Press and HarperCollins India, 2017), which was awarded the Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay New India Foundation book prize for the…

Sponsored by Vice Admiral Daniel Cooper, ret USN Jessica Brandt is the Head of Research and Policy at the Alliance for Securing Democracy and a Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Her research interests include international security, multilateral institutions, and the geopolitical consequences of state fragility. Jessica previously served as special adviser to the president in the Executive Office and as an associate fellow in Foreign Policy at Brookings, an International and Global Affairs fellow at…

Sasha Lezhnev is Deputy Director of Policy at The Sentry, where he focuses on conflict, governance, corruption, and corporate accountability issues in central Africa. He is also Founding Director of the Grassroots Reconciliation Group, an organization that works to reintegrate former child soldiers and refugees in northern Uganda. Sasha is a founding member of the Public-Private Alliance on Responsible Minerals Trade (PPA). He previously worked at Global Witness, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace on U.S. policy and…

Robert Daly was named as the second director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Woodrow Wilson Center in August 2013.  He came to the Wilson Center from the Maryland China Initiative at the University of Maryland.  Prior to that, he was American Director of the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing.  Robert Daly began work in U.S.-China relations as a diplomat, serving as Cultural Exchanges Officer at the…

John Dernbach is a nationally and internationally recognized authority on sustainable development, climate change, and environmental law. He is the director of the Environmental Law and Sustainability Center, and brings his expertise into the classroom in courses on property, environmental law, international law, and sustainability. Professor Dernbach writes and lectures widely on climate change, sustainable development, and environmental law. He has written more than 50 articles for law reviews and peer-reviewed journals, and has authored, coauthored, or contributed chapters to…

Nicholas Eftimiades recently retired from the US Department of Defense. His 34 year government career included working at CIA, US Department of State/Diplomatic Security Service and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). His career included overseas postings to Moscow, Frankfurt, London, and Tokyo. Nick's more notable assignments include Chief of DIA's Counterterrorism Operations, Senior Technical Officer of the Future Technology Division, and Chief of DIA’s Space Division. He served as DIA's lead for national space policy and strategy development. Mr. Eftimiades authored…

Mr. Walsh is a Director and President (since 2005) and Chief Executive Officer (since 2013) of UGI Corporation. In addition, Mr. Walsh serves as a Director (since 2005) and Chairman of the Board of AmeriGas Propane, Inc. (since 2016) where he had served as a director and vice chairman since 2005. He also serves as a Director and Vice Chairman of UGI Utilities, Inc. (since 2005). Both AmeriGas Propane, Inc. and UGI Utilities, Inc. are subsidiaries of UGI Corporation. Mr.…

Nicholas Kralev is an author, journalist and entrepreneur specializing in diplomacy and international affairs, whose work of more than 20 years has taken him to almost 100 countries. He is the executive director of the Washington International Diplomatic Academy, an independent organization that provides practical professional training in diplomacy and international affairs. A former Financial Times and Washington Times correspondent, he witnessed firsthand the conduct of American diplomacy while accompanying U.S. Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell…