Patrick Quirk is a nonresident senior fellow with both the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center and GeoStrategy Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He also serves as Vice President for Strategy, Innovation, and Impact at the International Republican Institute (IRI), a nonpartisan organization dedicated to supporting democracy worldwide.  

Before joining IRI, Quirk served as a member of the US secretary of state’s Policy Planning Staff as the lead advisor for fragile states, conflict and stabilization, and foreign assistance. Prior to this role, he served in the US State Department’s Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) as senior advisor for policy and strategy. In this capacity, he was the chief political scientist for, and a lead author of, the 2018 Stabilization Assistance Review; led the team that developed and institutionalized CSO’s approach to mitigate conflict surrounding elections and political transitions; and deployed to Myanmar, Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, and Tunisia to work on conflict prevention efforts.  

Prior to his government service, Quirk served as a nonresident fellow in the Foreign Policy program of the Brookings Institution, a research fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and a senior manager at Creative Associates International. 

Quirk is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, teaching courses on stabilization operations and political violence. He earned a BA in history from Bates College and a PhD in political science from Johns Hopkins University.