Ginger Matchett

  • Assistant Director
  • Media queries: press@atlanticcouncil.org
  • Contact email: gmatchett@atlanticcouncil.org

Events

All Content

In the News

Apr 9, 2026

Matchett in The Economic Times, Hindustan Times, Nepal News, The Express Tribune, on warning against US striking Iranian critical infrastructure

By Ginger Matchett

On April 7, GeoStrategy Initiative assistant director Ginger Matchett was quoted in “Atlantic Council warns: Hitting Iran’s power grid risks humanitarian disaster” for The Economic Times on President Trump’s “power plant day” threat. She and Joseph Webster argued that targeting civilian infrastructure in Iran is strategically ineffective and would have devasting spillover effects. They were […]

Critical Infrastructure Policy Energy & Environment

In the News

Apr 8, 2026

Matchett for MIT Technology Review on weaponizing water in future warfare

By Ginger Matchett

On April 7, GeoStrategy Initiative assistant director Ginger Matchett was quoted in “Desalination plants in the Middle East are increasingly vulnerable” for MIT Technology Review on how lessons learned from the Iran war mean water can be weaponized more strategically than previously imagined.

Critical Infrastructure Policy Energy & Environment

EnergySource

Apr 6, 2026

Why US-Israeli attacks on Iran’s grid and water systems would be counterproductive

By Joseph Webster, Ginger Matchett

Striking energy and water-related infrastructure in Iran would do little damage to the county's military capabilities. Instead, it would hurt civilians and potentially escalate the conflict.

Energy & Environment Geopolitics & Energy Security

Ginger Matchett is an assistant director with the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, where she focuses on the strategic foresight portfolio assessing trends, opportunities, and security threats shaping the future around the world. She works on the intersection of geopolitics, global environmental, food, and water security, climate change, defense, human rights, technologies, and US-China competition. She contributes to and helps lead the annual Global Foresight report series, as well as the portfolio’s research, events, operations, and business development. Her writing and commentary have appeared in CNN, ABC News, War on the Rocks, MIT Technology Review, The Economic Times, AFP, France 24, Arab News, Agencia EFE, the Express Tribune, and Noticias Uno.

Before GeoStrategy, Ginger Matchett served as a young global professional with the Forward Defense initiative’s US defense strategy and military operations portfolio, also part of the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center. Matchett was previously a project assistant and intern with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, where she worked on European security and defense, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and NATO operations. She also completed research assistant positions focusing on European and African geoeconomic security at the National Defense University, and on EU security and defense policy at European Parliament. She also interned with the Europe portfolio of government relations at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, events and programs at the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, public diplomacy marketing at the Czech embassy in Washington, DC, and global communications at She Saves A Nation. 

She graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in international studies from American University’s School of International Service, concentrating in global security, conflict, peace, and governance. She had a primary regional focus of Europe and Eurasia and a secondary of Sub-Saharan Africa. For her senior capstone, she conducted extensive research for the US Department of State’s Office of Global Criminal Justice on the nexus between climate change, conflict, and mass atrocities. Through her university, she also conducted qualitative ethnographic research on the women, peace, and security agenda, discourse of women’s health, and international development in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

Speaking German and French, Ginger Matchett studied abroad in Belgium with American University’s European Union in Action program and in Germany with the US Department of State’s Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange scholarship program.