Featured Experts


NICHOLAS BLANFORD
 
is a nonresident senior fellow with the Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Blanford covers the politics and security affairs of Lebanon and Syria. He is an acknowledged expert on Lebanese Hezbollah, particularly the organization’s evolving military activities which have remained a focus of his work for two decades.

REX BRYNEN is a nonresident senior fellow with the Middle East Security Initiative. He is also a professor of political science at McGill University, and founding editor of the conflict simulation website PAXsims

ELISA CATALANO EWERS 
is a nonresident senior fellow with both the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. Her last position was as a director for the Middle East and North Africa on the National Security Council staff.

SALAM FAYYAD
, former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, joined the Atlantic Council in July 2014 as its distinguished statesman, where he focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian relationship and the peace process, regional security, renewable energy, and economic development.

NILSU GOREN is a nonresident senior fellow with both the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and a research scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland, (CISSM), School Public Policy.

RICHARD LEBARON is a nonresident senior fellow with both the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East and the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at the Atlantic Council. Previously, he held numerous diplomatic positions, including ambassador to Kuwait.

OWEN DANIELS
 is assistant director for the Middle East Security Initiative. His work focuses on US-Gulf security cooperation, Gulf Cooperation Council alliance dynamics, Iranian-Arab Gulf relations, and broader regional security issues. Prior to joining the Atlantic Council, he worked at Aviation Week magazine, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS-US) and the Middle East Scientific Institute for Security (MESIS) in Amman, Jordan.

JOHN WATTS is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security with a focus on war gaming and Indo-Pacific security issues.

For more information, please contact Initiative Program Assistant Katherine Wolff at 202.778.4986 or KWolff@AtlanticCouncil.org