The Atlantic Council has appointed Amy Hawthorne, who most recently worked on the US response to the Arab transitions at the US Department of State, as a senior fellow in its Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East.

“Hawthorne is an authority on political reform in the Middle East, and brings to the Council solid experience and expertise in the region as an analyst and practitioner,” said Hariri Center Director Michele Dunne. “She will play a critical role in identifying new and effective ways for the United States and European partners to support successful democratic transitions in the Arab world, where the stakes are higher than ever.”

Her appointment serves to further deepen the Council’s work on historic Arab transitions through its fast-growing Hariri Center, which was established in 2012. Prior to her US government service, Hawthorne was executive director of the Hollings Center for International Dialogue, a nongovernmental organization with offices in Washington and Istanbul to promote mutual understanding between the United States and Muslim majority countries.

She previously worked as an associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she was founding editor of the Arab Reform Bulletin and analyzed political reform in the Arab world. Hawthorne has also worked with the US nonprofit International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) and advised numerous organizations working on democratic development in the region.

She has traveled extensively in the Arab world and Turkey, and has published and lectured widely on Middle East politics and democracy promotion. Hawthorne studied at Yale University and the University of Michigan, and was a Fulbright Scholar at al-Azhar University in Egypt.

The Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East brings North American and European voices together with experts from the Middle East, fostering a policy-relevant dialogue about the future of the region at a historic moment of political transformation. The Hariri Center provides objective analysis and innovative policy recommendations regarding political, economic, and social change in the Arab countires, and creates communities of influence around critical issues.