Michael Carpenter

Dr. Michael Carpenter is Senior Director at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council.  He also serves on the board of directors of the Jamestown Foundation and on the advisory board of Lithuania’s National Defense Foundation.  Dr. Carpenter served in the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense with responsibility for Russia, Eastern Europe, and Conventional Arms Control.  He also served in the White House as a foreign policy advisor to Vice President Joe Biden as well as on the National Security Council as Director for Russia.  Prior to his White House appointments, Dr. Carpenter was a career Foreign Service Officer with the State Department.  He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley and a B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University.  Carpenter received fellowships for his academic work from the MacArthur Foundation, IREX, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Fulbright Foundation. Dr. Carpenter regularly appears as a commentator on foreign affairs for BBC, MSNBC, CNN, Sky News, and Voice of America, among other media outlets.