Marcela Escobari is the vice president and director of the Center for Universal Education in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution. Prior to this, Escobari served as the special assistant to the president and coordinator for the Latin America Declaration for Migration and Protection in the White House National Security Council. She also served as the assistant administrator for USAID’s Bureau for Latin America & the Caribbean from 2016 to 2017 and from 2022 to 2024, under former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, respectively. While there, she led a 1,000-person team implementing over $1.4 billion per year in development initiatives across 17 regional offices. Escobari is recognized for bringing evidence to policymaking, driving results in multistakeholder initiatives, and effectively building bipartisan consensus for development priorities. She was awarded Freedom House’s 2024 Mark Palmer Prize for diplomats and civil servants whose work has advanced democracy and human rights.

Robert Kagan is the Stephan & Barbara Friedman senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He is a contributing writer for The Atlantic. Previously, he was a contributing columnist for The Washington Post. His most recent book, Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart – Again, was published by Knopf in April 2024. Kagan is an expert on defense and security, international affairs, U.S. national security and foreign policy, U.S. relations with Russia, China, and Europe, NATO expansion, and Egypt. He served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988 as a member of the policy planning staff, a principal speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. He currently serves as a member of the State Department’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board.

Jeffrey Feltman is the John C. Whitehead visiting fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He is also a senior fellow at the Washington-based United Nations Foundation and a distinguished visiting fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute. Feltman is an expert on defense and security, the United Nations, multilateral conflict prevention and resolution, international affairs, and the Middle East and North Africa. Feltman was a U.S. foreign service officer for over 26 years, focusing largely on the Middle East and North Africa.

Farah Khan is a fellow at Brookings Metro. Khan focuses on the role of public policy in addressing economic, racial, and geographic inequalities. Her research explores how fiscal policies, including tax and transfer programs, can reduce economic disparities and improve welfare outcomes for disadvantaged populations. Khan has previously worked as a consultant with the World Bank.

Homi Kharas is a senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development, housed in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. His areas of expertise are in development economics, poverty alleviation, global trade and governance, and the emergence of the middle class. Prior to joining Brookings, Kharas spent 26 years at the World Bank, serving for seven years as Chief Economist for the World Bank’s East Asia and Pacific region and Director for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, Finance and Private Sector Development, responsible for the Bank’s advice on structural and economic policies, fiscal issues, debt, trade, governance, and financial markets.

Vanessa Williamson is a senior fellow in Governance Studies at Brookings, and a senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Her areas of expertise are in federal fiscal and tax policy, democracy in America, U.S. government and policy, climate action and justice, and climate disasters and the environment. Prior to joining Brookings, Williamson was the policy director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. She is the director of the Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors. She is also the co-director of the Africa Security Initiative and the Brookings series on opioids: “The Opioid Crisis in America: Domestic and International Dimensions.” Felbab-Brown 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, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Tanzania, Namibia, Niger, and Nigeria. She was previously a senior advisor to the congressionally-mandated Afghanistan Peace Process Study Group.

Robert Maxim is a fellow at Brookings Metro. Maxim conducts research and designs policy proposals exploring how technological change and other economic trends affect people and places. His areas of expertise are in technological change, place-based industrial policy, access to digital employment, state innovation economies, and Native American communities. Maxim is an enrolled citizen of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and leads Brookings Metro’s research around Native American communities. His research has focused on the exclusion of Native Americans in U.S. federal government datasets, as well as how federal data misrepresents Native American identity.

Aaron Klein is Miriam K. Carliner Chair and senior fellow in the Center on Regulation and Markets, housed in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. His areas of expertise are in financial regulation, infrastructure finance, housing finance, U.S. economic policy, transportation, and artificial intelligence and emerging technology. Prior to joining Brookings in 2016, he directed the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Financial Regulatory Reform Initiative. Between 2009 and 2012, Klein served as the deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the Department of Treasury.