Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She is also the director of the Brookings project “Improving Global Drug Policy: Comparative Perspectives and UNGASS 2016” and co-director of another Brookings project, “Reconstituting Local Orders.” She is an expert on international and internal conflicts and nontraditional security threats, including insurgency, organized crime, urban violence, and illicit economies. Her fieldwork and research have covered, among others, Afghanistan, South Asia, Burma, Indonesia, the Andean region, Mexico, Morocco, Somalia, and eastern Africa.

Felbab-Brown is the author of "The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It" (Hurst, 2016, forthcoming); "Narco Noir: Mexico’s Cartels, Cops, and Corruption" (Brookings Institution Press, 2019, forthcoming); “Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-Building in Afghanistan” (Brookings Institution Press, 2012) and “Shooting Up: Counterinsurgency and the War on Drugs” (Brookings Institution Press, 2010). She is also the author of numerous policy reports, academic articles, and opinion pieces. A frequent commentator in U.S. and international media, Felbab-Brown regularly provides congressional testimony on these issues.

Among her recent publications are: “Who Pays for Peace in Colombia,” The Brookings Institution, September 29, 2016; “What’s the Best Way to Organize a Coalition around Countering Terrorism,” (with Seyom Brown), The Brookings Institution, June 7, 2016; “Blood and Faith in Afghanistan: A June 2016 Update,” The Brookings Institution, June 2016; “The Hits and Misses of Targeting the Taliban,” The New York Times, May 25, 2016; “Little to Gloat About,” The Cipher, April 3, 2016; “Breaking Bad in the Middle East and North Africa: Drugs, Militants, and Human Rights,” (with Sultan Barakat and Harold Trinkunas) The Brookings Institution, March 22, 2016; “The Global Poaching Vortex,” (with Bradley Porter), The Brookings Institution, March 2, 2016; “Safe in the City: Urban Spaces Are the New Frontiers of International Security,” The Brookings Institution, February 18, 2016; “Drugs and Drones: The Crime Empire Strikes Back,” Oxford University's Remote Warfare Blog, February 18, 2016; “Cuidado: The Inescapable Necessity of Better Law Enforcement in Mexico,” LSE, February 2016; and "No Easy Exit: Drugs and Counternarcotics Policies in Afghanistan," The Brookings Institution, April 2015.

Felbab-Brown received her doctorate in political science from MIT and her bachelor’s from Harvard University.

Geoffrey Gertz is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution and a research associate at the Global Economic Governance Programme at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on international political economy, particularly the politics of trade and foreign investment, investor-state dispute settlement, commercial diplomacy, and private sector development in fragile states. His academic research has been published in International Studies Quarterly and World Development, while his policy work has been featured in The Washington Post, Vox, and The Hill, as well as in numerous policy briefs and op-eds for the Brookings Institution and Oxford’s Global Economic Governance Programme. He has briefed American and European policymakers on international trade and investment policy. Prior to completing his Ph.D., he worked as a speechwriter to World Bank President Jim Yong Kim.

Originally from Ottawa, Canada, he received an M.Phil. and D.Phil. (Ph.D.) in international relations from the University of Oxford, and a B.A. in economics from DePauw University.

Carol Graham is the Leo Pasvolsky Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, a College Park Professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, and a Senior Scientist at the Gallup Organization.

Her books include: Happiness for All? Unequal Lives and Hopes in Pursuit of the American Dream (Princeton University Press, 2017); The Pursuit of Happiness: An Economy of Well-Being (Brookings, 2011; published in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and paperback); Happiness around the World: The Paradox of Happy Peasants and Miserable Millionaires (Oxford University Press, 2009; published in Chinese, Portuguese and paperback); Happiness and Hardship: Opportunity and Insecurity in New Market Economies (with Stefano Pettinato, Brookings, 2002; published in Spanish); Private Markets for Public Goods: Raising the Stakes in Economic Reform (Brookings, 1998); Safety Nets, Politics and the Poor: Transitions to Market Economies (Brookings, 1994); Peru’s APRA (Rienner, 1992); Improving the Odds: Political Strategies for Institutional Reform in Latin America (co-author, IDB, 1999); and A Half Penny on the Dollar: The Future of Development Aid, with Michael O’Hanlon (Brookings, 1997). She is the editor, with Eduardo Lora, of Paradox and Perceptions: Quality of Life in Latin America (Brookings, 2009); with Susan Collins, of the Brookings Trade Forum 2004: Globalization, Poverty, and Inequality (Brookings, 2006); and, with Nancy Birdsall, of New Markets, New Opportunities? Economic and Social Mobility in a Changing World (Brookings, 1999), and Beyond Trade-Offs: Market Reforms and Equitable Growth in Latin America (Brookings/IDB, 1988).

Graham is the author of numerous articles in journals including the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, the Journal of Population Economics, the World Bank Research Observer, Health Affairs, Health Economics, the Journal of Socio-Economics, World Economics, Foreign Affairs, the Journal of Development Studies, the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, World Development, the Journal of Happiness Studies. She has also authored numerous chapters in edited volumes, including the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. She is senior editor of Behavioral Science and Policy, and an associate editor at the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization and on the editorial boards of numerous other economic journals. She served on a National Academy of Sciences panel on well-being metrics and policy in 2012-13, received a Distinguished Research Fellow award for significant contribution to the field from the International Society of Quality of Life Studies for 2014, and, most recently, a Pioneer Award from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Graham served as Vice President and Director of Governance Studies at Brookings from 2002-2004. She has also served as a Special Advisor to the Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. She has been a consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank, United Nations Development Program, and the Harvard Institute for International Development, helping to design safety net programs in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. She has testified in Congress several times and has appeared on NBC News, National Public Radio, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and CNN among others. Graham has also written in the Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor, the Financial Times and the Washington Post. Reviews of her work on well-being have appeared in Science, The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Financial Times, and the New York Review of Books, among others.

Her research has received support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the World Bank, and the Tinker, Hewlett, and Templeton Foundations among others. She held a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship in 1997-98, during which time she served as Special Adviser to the Executive Vice President of the Inter-American Development Bank. Graham, born in Lima, Peru, has an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.A. from The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a Ph.D. from Oxford University. She is the mother of three children.

Samantha Gross is a fellow in the Cross-Brookings Initiative on Energy and Climate. Her work is focused on the intersection of energy, environment, and policy, including climate policy and international cooperation, energy efficiency, unconventional oil and gas development, regional and global natural gas trade, and the energy-water nexus.

Gross has more than 20 years of experience in energy and environmental affairs. She has been a visiting fellow at the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center, where she authored work on clean energy cooperation and on post-Paris climate policy. She was director of the Office of International Climate and Clean Energy at the U.S. Department of Energy. In that role, she directed U.S. activities under the Clean Energy Ministerial, including the secretariat and initiatives focusing on clean energy implementation and access and energy efficiency. Prior to her time at the Department of Energy, Gross was director of integrated research at IHS CERA. She managed the IHS CERA Climate Change and Clean Energy forum and the IHS relationship with the World Economic Forum. She also authored numerous papers on energy and environment topics and was a frequent speaker on these topics. She has also worked at the Government Accountability Office on the Natural Resources and Environment team and as an engineer directing environmental assessment and remediation projects.

Gross holds a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois, a Master of Science in environmental engineering from Stanford, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Michael Hansen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the director of the Brown Center on Education Policy. A labor economist by training, he has conducted original research on the teacher quality, value-added measurement, teacher evaluation, and teacher responses to incentives and accountability using state longitudinal data systems. Other areas of research include school turnaround and STEM learning.

Findings from Dr. Hansen’s research have received media coverage from prominent outlets including the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, Politico, and Education Week. His work has also been published in peer-reviewed research journals including American Economic Review, Education Finance and Policy, Economica, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, American Educational Research Journal, among others. Dr. Hansen has worked as principal investigator or co-PI on a range of contracts and grants with a variety of funders, including the Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Knight Foundation, and Teach For America. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Washington.

Ron Haskins is a Senior Fellow and holds the Cabot Family Chair in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he co-directs the Center on Children and Families. He is also a senior consultant at the Annie E. Casey Foundation and was the President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management in 2016. Haskins previously co-chaired the Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission appointed by Speaker Paul Ryan. He is the co-author of Show Me the Evidence: Obama’s Fight for Rigor and Evidence in Social Policy (2015) and the author of Work over Welfare: The Inside Story of the 1996 Welfare Reform Law (2006). Beginning in 1986, he spent 14 years on the staff of the House Ways and Means Committee and was subsequently appointed to be the Senior Advisor to President Bush for Welfare Policy. In 1997, Haskins was selected by the National Journal as one of the 100 most influential people in the federal government. He and his colleague Isabel Sawhill were recently awarded the Moynihan Prize by the American Academy of Political and Social Science for being champions of the public good and advocates for public policy based on social science research.

Haskins currently sits on the board of MDRC, UNC Chapel Hill School of Education Foundation, Power to Decide (formerly the National Campaign), and the Smith Richardson Foundation grants advisory board. He is the Senior Editor for the Future of Children, and a member of the Couples Advancing Together advisory committee, the Center for Neighborhood Enterprise, FPG Child Development Institute, the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation Poverty Research Center Advisory Panel.

He has formerly served on the CORE Advisory Board, the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy advisory board, the leadership council for Opportunity Nation, the Association for Public Policy Management, the Early Childhood Advisory Council North Carolina, and the US General Accounting Office Committee on Early Childhood Education and Care and Committee on Promoting and Supporting Work.

He lives with his wife in Rockville, Maryland and has four grown children and two grandchildren.

John Hudak is deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management and a senior fellow in Governance Studies. His research examines questions of presidential power in the contexts of administration, personnel, and public policy. Additionally, he focuses on campaigns and elections, legislative-executive interaction, and state and federal marijuana policy.

John’s 2016 book, Marijuana: A Short History, offers a unique, up-to-date profile of how cannabis emerged from the shadows of counterculture and illegality to become a serious, even mainstream, public policy issue and source of legal revenue for both businesses and governments. In it, he describes why attitudes and policy have changed, and what those changes mean for marijuana's future place in society.

His 2014 Presidential Pork: White House Influence over the Distribution of Federal Grants demonstrates that pork-barrel politics occurs beyond the halls of Congress. Presidents capitalize on their discretionary funding authority to target federal dollars to swing states in advance of presidential elections. His other work explores how agency staffing, expertise, and institutional structure facilitate or hinder presidential power and influence. This research explores the balance between political control and bureaucratic expertise in the delivery of public policy.

John’s work has been recognized for its quality and contribution by the Midwest Political Science Association and the American Political Science Association’s Presidency Research Group. His work has been supported by institutions including the National Science Foundation.

Prior to joining Brookings, John served as the program director and as a graduate fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. He holds a B.A. in political science and economics from the University of Connecticut and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Vanderbilt University.

Elizabeth Mann Levesque is a Fellow in the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings. She studies how institutional constraints shape the policymaking process and policy design, with a focus on K-12 education policy.

Her current research includes creating a new measure of state governance centralization and examining how education policy design and enactment vary by centralization across states. She is also the principal investigator of a project examining participation and influence of education organizations in the federal rulemaking process in the context of the Every Student Succeeds Act. Additionally, she studies employer and community college partnerships in the context of workforce development programs.

Previously, she has investigated how presidents pursue their policy goals through extra-legislative strategies at the subnational level, using an original dataset of waivers granted from federal laws in K-12 education, welfare, and Medicaid. In co-authored work, Elizabeth studies how aggregate U.S. partisanship changes over time.

Elizabeth earned her Ph.D., M.A., and B.A. in political science at the University of Michigan. Previously, she worked at the HighScope Center for Early Education Evaluation and as a middle school social studies teacher through Teach for America.

Adele Morris is a senior fellow and policy director for Climate and Energy Economics at the Brookings Institution. Her research informs critical decisions related to climate change, energy, and tax policy. She is a leading global expert on the design of carbon pricing policies.

She joined Brookings in July 2008 from the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the U.S. Congress, where she advised members and staff on economic, energy, and environmental policy. Before her work in Congress, Morris was the lead natural resource economist for the U.S. Treasury Department for nine years. In that position, she informed and represented Treasury’s positions on agriculture, energy, climate, and radio spectrum policies. On assignment to the U.S. Department of State in 2000, she led negotiations on land use and forestry issues in the international climate change treaty process. Prior to joining the Treasury, she served as the senior economist for environmental affairs at the President’s Council of Economic Advisers during the development of the Kyoto Protocol. Morris began her career at the Office of Management and Budget, where she oversaw rulemaking by agriculture and natural resource agencies. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Princeton University, an M.S. in Mathematics from the University of Utah, and a B.A. from Rice University.

Andre Perry is a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. His research focuses on race and structural inequality, education, and economic inclusion. Of particular note, Perry’s recent scholarship at Brookings has analyzed majority-black places and institutions in America, focusing on highlighting valuable assets worthy of increased investment.

Prior to his work at Brookings, Perry has been a founding dean, professor, award-winning journalist, and activist in the field of education. In 2015, Perry served on Louisiana Governor-elect John Bel Edward’s K-12 education transition committee, as well as New Orleans Mayor-elect Mitch Landrieu’s transition team as its co-chair for education in 2010.

In 2013, Perry founded the College of Urban Education at Davenport University in Grand Rapids, MI. Preceding his stint in Michigan, he was an associate professor of educational leadership at the University of New Orleans and served as CEO of the Capital One-University of New Orleans Charter Network.

Since 2013, Perry’s column on educational equity has appeared in the Hechinger Report, a nonprofit news organization focused on producing in-depth education journalism. Perry also contributes to TheRoot.com and the Washington Post. Perry’s views, opinions and educational leadership have been featured on CNN, PBS, National Public Radio, The New Republic and NBC.

Perry’s academic writings have concentrated on race, structural inequality, and urban schools. For the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Perry co-authored School by School: The Transformation of New Orleans Public Education in "Resilience and Opportunity: Lessons from the U.S. Gulf Coast after Katrina and Rita," published by Brookings Institution Press. Perry also co-authored in "The Transformation of New Orleans Public Schools: Addressing System-Level Problems without a System," published by the Data Center of New Orleans. He also co-authored the chapter Between Public and Private: Politics, Governance, and the New Portfolio Models for Urban School Reform published on Harvard University Press. Along with the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Perry co-authored the report, PLACE MATTERS for Health in Orleans Parish: Ensuring Opportunities for Good Health for All.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pa., Perry earned his Ph.D. in education policy and leadership from the University of Maryland College Park.

Tony Pipa is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program. In that capacity, he studies efforts to realize the universality of the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), exploring how economic mobility and security, and democratic cohesion and governance, can be advanced simultaneously in developed and developing countries. He also studies ways of maximizing the impact of U.S. development assistance and advancing policy strategies to systematize innovative financing models for development, including blended finance and public-private partnership models.

He has more than 25 years of experience in the philanthropic and public sectors addressing poverty in the U.S. and globally. His unique experience ranges from the local to the global and from startups to complex global enterprises, applying lessons across state, federal, and global levels.

He served as chief strategy officer for USAID and as U.S. special coordinator for the Post-2015 Agenda at the Department of State, leading the U.S. delegation at the U.N. to negotiate and adopt the SDGs. As deputy assistant to the administrator in Policy, Planning, and Learning at USAID, he oversaw the Agency’s global policy engagement and launched major partnerships with bilateral donors.

An independent consultant prior to his appointment, he ran the NGO Leaders Forum at Harvard University, an informal think tank for the CEOs of the largest U.S. NGOs, providing a platform to elevate international development in U.S. foreign policy and increase the effectiveness of their global operations. He also helped launch Foundation for Louisiana out of the governor’s office and worked with Oxfam America, the Family Independence Initiative, and multiple philanthropic collaboratives in the wake of hurricane Katrina. He served as founding executive director of the Warner Foundation, addressing issues of race and poverty in North Carolina and was founding director of philanthropic services at the Triangle Community Foundation.

He has published articles, book chapters and opinion pieces on financial innovation to end poverty, the role of NGOs in a new aid architecture, nonprofit policy proposals to strengthen U.S. communities, and the importance of local charities to disaster resilience. He attended Stanford University, was graduated from Duke University, and earned a Master of Public Administration at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Richard V. Reeves is a senior fellow in Economic Studies, Director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative, and co-director of the Center on Children and Families. His research focuses on the middle class, inequality, and social mobility.

Richard’s publications for Brookings include his latest book Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class Is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That Is a Problem, and What to Do about It (2017), Time for justice: Tackling race inequalities in health and housing (2017), Ulysses goes to Washington: Political myopia and policy commitment devices (2015), Saving Horatio Alger: Equality, Opportunity, and the American Dream (2014), Character and Opportunity (2014), and The Parenting Gap (2014). He is also a contributor to The Atlantic, National Affairs, Democracy Journal, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Richard is also the author of John Stuart Mill – Victorian Firebrand, an intellectual biography of the British liberal philosopher and politician.

In September 2017, Politico magazine named Richard one of the top 50 thinkers in the U.S. for his work on class and inequality. He is a member of the Government of Canada's Ministerial Advisory Committee on Poverty, and also teaches at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

Richard’s previous roles include: director of Demos, the London-based political think-tank; director of futures at the Work Foundation; principal policy advisor to the Minister for Welfare Reform; social affairs editor of the The Observer; research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research; economics correspondent for The Guardian; and a researcher at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. He is also a former European Business Speaker of the Year.

Richard has a BA from Oxford University and a PhD from Warwick University.

Richard has received an honorarium for speaking from McKinsey & Company.

Molly Reynolds is a fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings. She studies Congress, with an emphasis on how congressional rules and procedure affect domestic policy outcomes.

She is the author of the book, "Exceptions to the Rule: The Politics of Filibuster Limitations in the U.S. Senate," which explores creation, use, and consequences of the budget reconciliation process and other procedures that prevent filibusters in the U.S. Senate. Current research projects include work on the congressional budget process, especially the consequences of broader partisan dynamics on the consideration of the yearly budget resolution and appropriations bills, and on the consequences of federalism for national policymaking in the current period of unified Republican party control. She also supervises the maintenance of "Vital Statistics on Congress," Brookings’s long-running resource on the first branch of government. Other past work has explored the role of issue advertising in legislative politics, especially health policy, and on how individual senators use obstructive tactics to gain political benefits from the legislative process.

Reynolds received her Ph.D. in political science and public policy from the University of Michigan and her A.B. in government from Smith College, and previously served as a senior research coordinator in the Governance Studies program at Brookings. In addition, she has served as an instructor at George Mason University.

Martha Ross is a fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings. Her work focuses on human capital and strategies to increase the skills, employment, and earnings of current and future workers. Her Brookings publications have included reports on employment trends among young adults, the healthcare workforce, and recommendations on improving educational options and career pathways for low-income or low-skilled workers. Prior to joining Brookings, she was a Presidential Management Fellow at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.

She is the author of “Strengthening Educational and Career Pathways for DC Youth” and has co-authored or contributed to numerous other publications such as, “The Plummeting Labor Market Fortunes of Teens and Young Adults,” “Drive! Moving Tennessee’s Automotive Sector up the Value Chain,” “Envisioning Opportunity: Three Options for a Community College in Washington, DC,” “Reducing Poverty in Washington, D.C. and Rebuilding the Middle Class from Within,” “Leaders Among Us: Developing a Community Health Worker Program in Washington, D.C.,” “Health Status and Access to Care among Low-Income Washington, DC Residents,” “Thin the Soup or Shorten the Line: Washington Area Nonprofits Adapt to Uncertain Times,” and “Calling 211: Enhancing the Washington Region's Safety Net After 9/11.” She was detailed temporarily to the Council of the District of Columbia in 2007 to assist the Committee on Workforce Development and Government Operations.

Prior to joining Brookings, Martha was a Presidential Management Fellow in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she focused on welfare policy. She has a master’s degree from the University of Chicago’s School of Social Service Administration and a bachelor’s degree from Colorado College.

Amanda Sloat is a Robert Bosch senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings. She is also a nonresident fellow in the Ash Center at Harvard Kennedy School. Her areas of expertise include Turkey and Southern Europe, British politics, the European Union’s foreign policy, and trans-Atlantic relations.

Sloat served in the U.S. government for nearly a decade. She was most recently deputy assistant secretary for Southern Europe and Eastern Mediterranean Affairs at the State Department, where she was responsible for U.S. relations with Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey as well as for coordinating European engagement on Middle East issues. She also served as senior advisor to the White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf region and as senior advisor to the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. She previously worked as senior professional staff on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, with responsibility for European policy.

Prior to her government service, Sloat was a senior program officer with the National Democratic Institute, including work in Iraq with the Council of Representatives. She was also a post-doctoral research fellow with the Institute of Governance at Queen's University Belfast. During this time, she held visiting fellowships at the Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, and the Jean Monnet Center at New York University Law School. She also served as a special advisor to the Scottish Parliament, Northern Ireland Assembly, and European Commission.

Sloat holds a doctorate in politics from the University of Edinburgh and a bachelor's in political theory from James Madison College at Michigan State University. She has published a book, "Scotland in Europe: A Study of Multi-Level Governance" (Peter Lang Pub Inc, 2002). She has written widely on European politics in academic and foreign policy outlets.

Adie Tomer is a fellow at the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program and leads the Metropolitan Infrastructure Initiative. His work focuses on metropolitan infrastructure usage patterns, including personal and freight transportation, and the intersections between infrastructure and technological development. Prior to his work at Brookings, Adie was a Senior Analyst at the New York County District Attorney’s Office where he advised senior executives on policy-relevant matters. He holds a master’s in Public Policy from American University and a B.A. from the University of Florida.