Executive Director, Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)
Mark Dubowitz is the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan policy institute, where he leads projects on Iran, sanctions, countering threat finance, and nonproliferation.
He is an expert on Iran’s global network including the regime's nuclear, terrorist, missile and cyber threats to the United States and other allies, and is widely recognized as one of the key influencers in shaping sanctions policies to counter the threats emanating from Iran and its surrogates.
Mark was featured as one of the key “financial warriors” against Iran by The Wall Street Journal's Jay Solomon in his 2016 book The Iran Wars. Politico magazine featured Mr. Dubowitz as one of Washington’s leading policy experts challenging Iran’s illicit behavior, observing that he is “...constantly thinking up—and promoting—new ways to squeeze the regime...”
Mr. Dubowitz has advised the Obama and Bush administrations and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and testified more than twenty times before the U.S. Congress and foreign legislatures.
A former venture capitalist and technology executive, Mark heads FDD’s Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance and is the author or co-author of over twenty studies on economic sanctions and Iran's nuclear program. He is widely published and cited in U.S. and international media. He teaches courses on sanctions and international negotiations at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs, where he is a senior fellow.
Mark has a master’s degree in international public policy from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, and law and MBA degrees from the University of Toronto.
Raised in Toronto, he is a proud American citizen, and has lived in Washington, D.C.
Adjunct Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security
Peter Harrell is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, where he focuses on the intersection of economics and national security. Research interests include economic statecraft, sanctions and energy.
From 2012-2014, Mr. Harrell served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counter Threat Finance and Sanctions in the State Department’s Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs. In that role, Harrell was instrumental in developing the international sanctions against Iran, Russia, and Syria, and in the easing of sanctions on Myanmar. He also played a leading role in the U.S. government’s efforts to counter terrorist financing, including work to combat the financing of the Islamic State (ISIL).
Mr. Harrell served on the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff from March 2009 to June 2012, where he played a leading role in developing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s economic statecraft agenda. He also worked on a variety of other trade and economic issues, with a particular interest in Asia, and authored and edited sections of the State Department’s first-ever Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR).
Before joining the State Department, Mr. Harrell served on President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign. He previously worked as a reporter for Congressional Quarterly in Washington, D.C., and is the author of one book, Rwanda’s Gamble: Gacaca and a New Model of Transitional Justice. Mr. Harrell is a magna cum laude graduate of Princeton University and holds a J.D. from the Yale Law School. He is originally from Atlanta, Georgia.
Chief Legal + Administrative Officer, Waystar Health
Matthew R. A. Heiman leads all legal and corporate governance matters for Waystar. Over the last two decades, he has worked in corporate and government sectors, gaining deep experience in the areas of corporate governance, litigation, risk management, security, and compliance.
Most recently, Matthew was Vice President, Corporate Secretary & Associate General Counsel at Johnson Controls where he helped establish a new corporate secretary department and led the integration of legal departments following the company’s merger with Tyco International. Prior to its merger with Johnson Controls, Matthew held a number of positions with Tyco International including Vice President, Chief Compliance & Audit Officer. Before Tyco, Matthew was a lawyer with the National Security Division at the U.S Department of Justice. He was a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq and practiced as a trial lawyer with the law firm of McGuireWoods.
Matthew holds a BA and JD from Indiana University and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is a Senior Fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute.
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Elliot School of International Affairs, The George Washington University
Henry R. Nau is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. From 1989-2016, he directed the US-Japan- South Korea Legislative Exchange Program, semiannual meetings among Members of the US Congress, Japanese Diet, and South Korean National Assembly. During the academic year 2011-12 he was the W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Susan Louise Dyer Peace National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Professor Nau holds a B.S. degree in Economics, Politics and Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Previously, he taught at Williams College and as Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Stanford, and Columbia Universities. He is the recipient of grants from, among others, the Council on Foreign Relations, National Science Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smith- Richardson Foundation, Century Foundation, Japan US Friendship Commission, Rumsfeld Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Hoover Institution. From August 1975 to January 1977 he served as a special assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and from January 1981 to July 1983 as senior staff member and White House sherpa on President Reagan’s National Security Council responsible for G-7 Summits and international economic affairs.
Among numerous publications, he is the author of five single-authored University press books, including Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy Under Jefferson, Polk, Truman and Reagan (Princeton University Press, 2013; paperback with new preface 2015); Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas (Sage/CQ Press, 5th Edition, 2016); At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Cornell University Press, 2002); The Myth of America's Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990s (Oxford University Press, 1990) and National Politics and International Technology: Nuclear Reactor Development in Western Europe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974). His most recent articles and book chapters include “How Restraint Leads to War,” Commentary Magazine, (September 2015; Lead Article on Front Cover); “The ‘Great Expansion:’ The Economic Legacy of Ronald Reagan,” in Reagan’s Legacy in a World Transformed, edited by Jeffrey L. Chidester and Paul Kengor, (Harvard University Press, 2015); and “Ideas have consequences: The Cold War and today,” International Politics, (July 2011).
He is the recipient of the State Department's Superior Honor Award (1977), the Elliott School Harry Harding Teaching Prize (2007), and the Japanese Government's Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon (2016). From 1963-65 he served as a Lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Founder and Executive Director, National Security Institute; Assistant Professor of Law, Antonin Scalia Law School, George Mason University
Jamil N. Jaffer is the Founder and Executive Director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University where he also serves as an Assistant Professor of Law, Director of the National Security Law and Policy Program, and Director of the Cyber, Intelligence, and National Security LLM Program. Jamil also teaches classes on counterterrorism, intelligence, surveillance, cybersecurity, and other national security matters, as well as a summer course held abroad with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch. Jamil is also affiliated with Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and previously served as a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019.
Jamil is also a Venture Partner with Paladin Capital Group, where he assists the firm with investments across the full range of its themes and theses, including a focus on dual-use national security technologies. Jamil also serves on the board of directors of RangeForce, a cybersecurity training and readiness platform startup and Tozny, a digital identity startup, and on the advisory boards of U.S. Strategic Metals, North America’s largest primary producer of cobalt, a critical mineral used in EV batteries, aerospace, and other national security applications; and Constella Intelligence, a deep and dark web intelligence startup. Jamil also serves as an advisor to Beacon Global Strategies, a strategic advisory firm and Duco, a technology platform startup that connects corporations with geopolitical and international business experts. Jamil is also the managing director of Trigraph Caveat Capital, a private investment vehicle.
Among other things, Jamil currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the Board of Advisors for the Global Cyber Alliance, and the Advisory Board of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies’ Center on Cyber and Tech Innovation, the Executive Committee of the Reagan Institute Strategy Group. Jamil is also a Fellow at the Academy for Judaic, Christian, and Islamic Studies, an advisor to the Concordia Summit, and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Center for Intelligence Policy, the Board of Directors of Speech First, and the Executive Committee of the International Law and National Security Practice Group of the Federalist Society.
Immediately prior to his current positions, from 2015-2021, Jamil served as a senior business leader at IronNet Cybersecurity, helping take the company from a bootstrapped first-year technology products startup through two rounds of venture capital fundraising, growing from 40 employees to over 300, and through its listing on New York Stock Exchange. In his role as IronNet's Senior Vice President for Strategy, Partnerships & Corporate Development, Jamil worked directly for the co-CEOs of the company, Gen (ret.) Keith B. Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Founding Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, and Bill Welch, the former COO of Zscaler and Duo; in that role, Jamil led all of the company’s strategic and technology partnership efforts, including developing go-to-market and technology integration plans with some of the largest cloud platforms and cybersecurity companies in the market, evaluating potential acquisition targets, and developing overall corporate strategy and thought leadership around collective security and collaborative defense in the cyber arena.
Prior to his time at IronNet, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee as Chief Counsel and Senior Advisor under Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN), where he worked on key national security and foreign policy issues, including leading the drafting of the proposed Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS in 2014 and 2015, the AUMF against Syria in 2013, and revisions to the 9/11 AUMF against al Qaeda. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act and two sanctions laws against Russia for its first intervention in Ukraine.
Prior to joining SFRC, Jamil served as Senior Counsel to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence under Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) where he led the committee’s oversight of NSA surveillance, NRO intelligence issues, and NGA analytic and collection matters, as well as intelligence community-wide counterterrorism issues. Jamil was also the lead architect of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, the nation’s first cyber threat intelligence sharing legislation that was signed into law in 2015.
In the Bush Administration, Jamil served in the White House as an Associate Counsel to the President, handling Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community matters, and serving as one of the White House Counsel’s primary representatives to the National Security Council Deputies Committee.
Prior to the White House, Jamil served on the leadership team of the Justice Department’s National Security Division as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for National Security, where he focused on counterterrorism and intelligence matters. At NSD, Jamil helped lead the division’s work on In re: Directives, the first ever two-party litigated matter in the FISA Court and the second case before the FISA Court of Review in its 30-year history. Jamil also led NSD’s efforts on the President’s Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (CNCI), including the drafting of NSPD-54/HSPD-23, and related classified matters, and advised the National Security Agency (NSA) and U.S. Cyber Command’s predecessor organization, the Joint Function Component Command for Network Warfare (JFCC-NW), on matters related to cyber intelligence collection and offensive cyber activities. For his work on these matters, Jamil was awarded the Assistant Attorney General’s Award for Special Initiative and was among the group of lawyers awarded the Director of National Intelligence’s 2008 Legal Award (Team of the Year – Cyber Legal).
Jamil also served in other positions in the Justice Department, including in the Office of Legal Policy, where he worked on the confirmations of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. to the United States Supreme Court.
Jamil also served as a lawyer in private practice at Kellogg Huber, a Washington, DC-based litigation boutique, as a policy advisor to Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and as a staff member or senior advisor on a number of political campaigns, including two presidential campaigns and a presidential transition team. While in law school, Jamil was a member of the University of Chicago Law Review, managing editor of the Chicago Journal of International Law, and National Symposium Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Following law school, Jamil served as a law clerk to Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, later in his career, as a law clerk to then-Judge Neil M. Gorsuch when he first joined the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit as well as a law clerk to Justice Neil Gorsuch when he joined the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jamil has published multiple op-eds and academic articles on national security, foreign policy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, encryption, and intelligence matters, and is the co-author of a book chapter with former NSA Director Gen. (Ret.) Keith B. Alexander on national security and the press in National Security, Leaks, and the Freedom of the Press: The Pentagon Papers Fifty Years On (2021) and a book chapter with former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) Mike Hayden on ISIS, al Qaeda, and other international terrorist groups in Choosing to Lead: American Foreign Policy for a Disordered World (2015). Jamil has also written book chapters on cybersecurity and surveillance, as well as op-eds and policy papers with former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen, and Congressman Mike Waltz (R-FL), among others.
Jamil has previously taught graduate-level courses in intelligence law and policy at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and the National Intelligence University, served an outside advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, and has recently testified before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on China, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and other national security matters. Jamil has also recently appeared on a range of national television and radio outlets including CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, Bloomberg, PBS, Voice of America, and National Public Radio, and in various print and online publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and the Washington Post on a range of national security matters including cybersecurity, counterterrorism, surveillance, encryption, privacy, and foreign policy issues.
Jamil holds degrees from UCLA (BA, cum laude), the University of Chicago Law School (JD, with honors), and the United States Naval War College (MA, with distinction).
Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Elliot School of International Affairs, The George Washington University
Henry R. Nau is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, The George Washington University. From 1989-2016, he directed the US-Japan- South Korea Legislative Exchange Program, semiannual meetings among Members of the US Congress, Japanese Diet, and South Korean National Assembly. During the academic year 2011-12 he was the W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellow and the Susan Louise Dyer Peace National Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
Professor Nau holds a B.S. degree in Economics, Politics and Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Previously, he taught at Williams College and as Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Stanford, and Columbia Universities. He is the recipient of grants from, among others, the Council on Foreign Relations, National Science Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Smith- Richardson Foundation, Century Foundation, Japan US Friendship Commission, Rumsfeld Foundation, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and the Hoover Institution. From August 1975 to January 1977 he served as a special assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs and from January 1981 to July 1983 as senior staff member and White House sherpa on President Reagan’s National Security Council responsible for G-7 Summits and international economic affairs.
Among numerous publications, he is the author of five single-authored University press books, including Conservative Internationalism: Armed Diplomacy Under Jefferson, Polk, Truman and Reagan (Princeton University Press, 2013; paperback with new preface 2015); Perspectives on International Relations: Power, Institutions, and Ideas (Sage/CQ Press, 5th Edition, 2016); At Home Abroad: Identity and Power in American Foreign Policy (Cornell University Press, 2002); The Myth of America's Decline: Leading the World Economy into the 1990s (Oxford University Press, 1990) and National Politics and International Technology: Nuclear Reactor Development in Western Europe (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974). His most recent articles and book chapters include “How Restraint Leads to War,” Commentary Magazine, (September 2015; Lead Article on Front Cover); “The ‘Great Expansion:’ The Economic Legacy of Ronald Reagan,” in Reagan’s Legacy in a World Transformed, edited by Jeffrey L. Chidester and Paul Kengor, (Harvard University Press, 2015); and “Ideas have consequences: The Cold War and today,” International Politics, (July 2011).
He is the recipient of the State Department's Superior Honor Award (1977), the Elliott School Harry Harding Teaching Prize (2007), and the Japanese Government's Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon (2016). From 1963-65 he served as a Lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.
Chief Legal + Administrative Officer, Waystar Health
Matthew R. A. Heiman leads all legal and corporate governance matters for Waystar. Over the last two decades, he has worked in corporate and government sectors, gaining deep experience in the areas of corporate governance, litigation, risk management, security, and compliance.
Most recently, Matthew was Vice President, Corporate Secretary & Associate General Counsel at Johnson Controls where he helped establish a new corporate secretary department and led the integration of legal departments following the company’s merger with Tyco International. Prior to its merger with Johnson Controls, Matthew held a number of positions with Tyco International including Vice President, Chief Compliance & Audit Officer. Before Tyco, Matthew was a lawyer with the National Security Division at the U.S Department of Justice. He was a legal advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq and practiced as a trial lawyer with the law firm of McGuireWoods.
Matthew holds a BA and JD from Indiana University and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is a Senior Fellow at George Mason University’s National Security Institute.
Attorney, Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson, PA
Erik Zimmerman is a commercial and appellate litigator. He previously clerked for Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Honorable J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Aided by his experience in the judicial system, Erik represents clients at all levels of the federal and state courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, federal and state appellate and trial courts, and federal administrative agencies.
Erik has experience in a broad range of subject areas, including contract disputes, employment and labor law, ERISA, and health care and health insurance law. He also represents clients in cases involving constitutional law, communications law, fraud, the False Claims Act, product liability, punitive damages and federal preemption of state law.
Erik's representative matters include helping to secure dismissal of a multibillion dollar breach of contract action in federal district court. He also successfully represented a client in appealing a judgment of nearly $100 million to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in another contract dispute.
Erik also maintains an active pro bono practice. He has represented clients in federal and state appeals involving issues of criminal law, the Fourth Amendment and landlord-tenant law. Erik is admitted only in the District of Columbia.
JCPOA: One Year in Review
Teleforum$400 Million to Iran: Ransom or Diplomacy?
Jamil N. Jaffer
Jamil N. Jaffer explains the legal implications of the US State Department's payment of $400...
Conservative Internationalism: A Look at American Foreign Policy - Podcast
Henry Nau, Matthew R. A. Heiman
United States foreign policy regarding terrorism, China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and international trade are at...
Conservative Internationalism: A Look at American Foreign Policy
TeleforumBank Markazi v. Peterson - Post-Decision SCOTUScast
Erik R. Zimmerman
On April 20, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Bank Markazi v. Peterson. The Iran Threat...
Obama is upending the role of the presidency
Federalist Society member John Yoo writes for the Washington Post: President Obama has all but...
Topics
Most Popular "Engage" Articles of 2015
As a new year fast approaches, let's take a moment to look back at some...
Topics
Most Popular Teleforum Calls of 2015
As a new year fast approaches, let's take a moment to look back at some...
Topics
Article: The Misuse of Interpol's Database
The New York Times Editorial Board writes: Fugitive alerts issued by Interpol, the international law enforcement clearinghouse,...
Teleforum Preview: Obama's Foreign Policy
Join the Federalist Society's International and National Security Law Practice Group for a Teleforum conference call with...