Ambassador (ret.) Alina L. Romanowski is a distinguished fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs. Ambassador Romanowski is a national security expert with over forty years of US government experience across diplomacy, defense, intelligence, and development. She most recently served as US ambassador to Iraq (2022 to 2024) and Kuwait (2020 to 2022).

Ambassador Romanowski held senior roles at the State Department, including principal deputy coordinator for counterterrorism, coordinator for US assistance to Europe and Eurasia, and deputy assistant secretary in both the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. She was the founding director of the Middle East Partnership Initiative.

At the US Agency for International Development, she served as deputy assistant administrator and acting assistant administrator for the Middle East Bureau. At the Department of Defense, she was deputy assistant secretary of defense for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs and the founding director of the Near East South Asia Center at the National Defense University. She began her career as a Middle East and South Asia analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Ambassador Romanowski holds a BA and MA from the University of Chicago and studied at Tel Aviv University. She is a recipient of multiple senior US government awards and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Affairs Council, and the AMIDEAST board.