Daniel P. Erikson is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center. He also serves as a senior advisor at Covington & Burling, where he is part of the firm’s Latin America Initiative, advising clients on political and economic risk, strategic engagement, and regulatory issues across the region.

He has over two decades of experience in foreign policy, national security, and international affairs, with a focus on the Western Hemisphere. He served as special assistant to the president and senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, where he was the lead White House advisor on Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to that, he was deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Western Hemisphere at the US Department of Defense, where he led policy on defense modernization, security cooperation, cyber policy, and humanitarian response. His earlier roles include serving as special advisor in the Office of the Vice President and as senior advisor at the US Department of State for congressional and intergovernmental affairs.

He has published extensively on US-Latin America relations, testified before the US Congress, and appeared in leading media outlets. His awards include the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service and the US State Department’s Superior Honor Award.

Erikson holds a Master of Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School, where he was a dean’s fellow, and a Bachelor of Arts with honors in international relations from Brown University. He was a Fulbright-García Robles fellow in binational business in Mexico and is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.