Ms. Tannor is a Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) Supervisory Special Agent who began her foreign service career 19 years ago as an Agent in the DSS Chicago Field Office. She now joins OSAC on the heels of her service as the Security Advisor to the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) in Stuttgart, Germany. There, Ms. Tannor acted as a key interlocutor among DSS, EUCOM, and U.S. Diplomatic missions across Europe, synchronizing planning, operations, and crisis response efforts. 

Previously, Ms.Tannor was the Branch Chief for Counterintelligence Policy, focusing on mitigating threats by foreign intelligence services against U.S. diplomatic personnel. She served as the Congressional Affairs Advisor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Diplomatic Security; the Management Officer and acting Deputy Chief of Mission in Luanda, Angola; and on the International Organized Crime Task Force. She was the Regional Security Officer at U.S. Embassy Djibouti, and Assistant Regional Security Officer in Algiers as it normalized operations, following more than a decade of violent civil unrest. Ms.Tannor also served on Secretary of State Colin Powell’s security detail in the lead-up to the Iraq War from 2003-2004. 

Ms. Tannor was selected as the Department of State’s 2017/2018 International Women’s Leadership Fellow, completing executive leadership training at Harvard Business School and INSEAD Business School in Fontainebleau, France. She has also received multiple Department Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards. 

Ms. Tannor is married with four children; her husband is also a Diplomatic Security Supervisory Special Agent. She holds a Bachelor’s of Business Administration in Marketing from Texas Wesleyan University and an MBA in International Business from the University of Baltimore. 

Brian P. McKeon was sworn in as Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources on March 19.

Prior to assuming his position as Deputy Secretary, McKeon was a senior director of the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, DC. McKeon served in several national security positions in the Obama-Biden Administration. At the Department of Defense, he served as Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Policy and concurrently as acting Under Secretary for the final seven months of the administration. In the White House, he served as Deputy Assistant to the President, Executive Secretary and Chief of Staff of the National Security Council, as well as Deputy National Security Adviser to then-Vice President Biden.

McKeon also served for more than 20 years in the U.S. Senate, including 12 years as chief counsel to the Democratic members of the Committee on Foreign Relations and concurrently as deputy staff director for two years.

McKeon received a JD from the Georgetown University Law Center and a BA from the University of Notre Dame. He was twice awarded the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service.

Richard Kidd, a member of the Senior Executive Service, is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment & Energy Resilience. In this position, he provides policy and governance for programs and activities that enable resilience and cyber-secure energy for weapon systems and installations. This includes budgetary, policy, and management oversight of programs related to climate change, compliance with environmental laws, prevention of pollution, management of natural and cultural resources, and cleanup of contaminated sites, as well as energy resilience, risk, and performance.

Prior to his current position, Mr. Kidd served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Strategic Integration where he led the strategy development, resource requirements, and overall business transformation processes for the Office within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment. He was responsible for developing and monitoring performance metrics for the Army’s installation management community as well as leading a strategic effort to examine options for future Army installations.

Throughout Mr. Kidd’s career, he has served in various leadership positions including Executive Director for the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (FPISC), a Federal entity which he helped to stand up. He was the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Energy and Sustainability within the Army and was responsible for the oversight and implementation of all programs and initiatives related to Energy Security and Sustainability. Mr. Kidd also held a position with the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy where he was responsible for leading the Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP).

Mr. Kidd received a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1986 and attained a Master’s Degree in Public and Private Management from Yale University in Connecticut in 1993.

Alice Hill is the David M. Rubenstein Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Her work at CFR focuses on the risks, consequences, and responses associated with climate change. Hill previously served as Special Assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for resilience policy on the National Security Council staff where she led the development of national policy to build resilience to catastrophic risks, including climate change and biological threats. Her coauthored book, Building a Resilient Tomorrow, was published in 2019. In 2020, Yale University and the Op-Ed Project awarded her the Public Voices Fellowship on the Climate Crisis. Hill’s new book, The Fight for Climate After COVID-19, was published in September 2021.

In 2009, Hill served as Senior Counselor to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in which she led the formulation of DHS’s first-ever climate adaptation plan and the development of strategic plans regarding catastrophic biological and chemical threats, including pandemics. While at the Department of Homeland Security, Hill founded and led the internationally recognized anti-human trafficking initiative, the Blue Campaign. Hill served as a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution from 2016 to 2019, during which time she was awarded the National Institute of Building Sciences President’s Award and the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Center Writing Fellowship. In 2016, Harvard University’s National Preparedness Leadership Initiative also named her Meta-Leader of the Year. Earlier in her career, Hill served as supervising judge on both the superior and municipal courts in Los Angeles and as chief of the white-collar crime prosecution unit in the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney’s office. The Department of Justice awarded her its highest accolade, the John Marshall Award for Outstanding Legal Achievement.

Hill earned her bachelor’s degree in history and economics with distinction from Stanford University and her law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Katya Sienkiewicz is a Senior Project Manager for The Americas, on the Global Security & Resilience team at Starbucks. She manages Global Intelligence reporting and insights across North and Latin America. Katya previously led resilient design strategies with a number of cities across the US, Canada and Asia with the 100 Resilient Cities organization, pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation. She developed and delivered training and support to cities, coordinating sustainability and urban resilience design principals. As a USAID Foreign Service Officer, she managed the USG’s largest agricultural stabilization program in Kandahar, Afghanistan and led USAID’s Human Rights program in Colombia. She also designed Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first post-war integrated school effort.

Doowan Lee is a national security expert specializing in analytic methods and international security. As a faculty member and principal investigator at the Naval Postgraduate School for over ten years, he worked on sponsored and funded projects to support deterrence efforts with democratic governments against Chinese and Russian influence. Central to this work was a focus on how China and Russia exploit social media and communications information to undermine political processes. He has also worked closely with the U.S. military to develop strategies against North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, including deterrence and crisis response, and serves as a subject matter expert on these areas.

Through his own LLC, he works with social media analytic companies in Silicon Valley to analyze state-sponsored social media data and information campaigns. His interest is in strengthening civil society and democracy by leveraging our strengths in emerging technology. He holds master’s degrees in political science from the University of Chicago (ABD) and Simon Fraser. He loves hiking with his family and building things with scrap wood.

Jane Lytvynenko is an award-winning reporter in the field of disinformation and online investigations. At Harvard, she researches and develops training on disinformation investigation for the Media Manipulation Casebook. Lytvynenko previously spent nearly five years at BuzzFeed News, where she was a Senior Reporter. Her work has focused on the rise of conspiracy theories, hyper–partisan news, and extremism globally. Her investigative work has touched upon extremist organizations operating in the U.S., disinformation network operators who manipulate social media on behalf of state actors, and online “huckster” scams. Jane was born in Kyiv, Ukraine and resides in Cambridge, MA. 

Graham Brookie is the Senior Director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) based in Washington D.C.

The DFRLab conducts open-source research with a focus on governance, technology, security, social media, and where each intersect.

Prior to joining the DFRLab, Brookie served in various positions at the White House and National Security Council. His most recent role was as an adviser for strategic communications with a focus on digital strategy, audience engagement, and coordinating a cohesive record of former U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security and foreign policy. Previously he served as the adviser to the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (APHSCT)– the president’s top aide for cybersecurity, counterterrorism, intelligence, and homeland security issues. He also worked in the East Asia, Middle East, and North Africa directorates at the National Security Council.

Brookie graduated cum laude with degrees from American University in Washington, DC. He also completed the London School of Economics’ general course.

Suzanne Spaulding is Senior Adviser for Homeland Security and Director of the Defending Democratic Institutions project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). She also serves as a member of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Previously, she served as Undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where she led the National Protection and Programs Directorate, now called the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), managing a $3 billion budget and a workforce of 18,000, charged with strengthening cybersecurity and protecting the nation’s critical infrastructure, including election infrastructure.

Ms. Spaulding has served in Republican and Democratic administrations and on both sides of the aisle in Congress. She was general counsel for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Minority Staff Director for the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. She also spent six years at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she was Assistant General Counsel and the legal adviser to the Director’s Nonproliferation Center. She was Executive Director of two Congressionally-created commissions, on WMD and terrorism.

Following the 9/11 attacks, Ms. Spaulding worked with key critical infrastructure sectors as they reviewed their security posture and advised the CEOs of the Business Roundtable. In 2002, she was appointed by Governor Mark Warner of Virginia to the Secure Commonwealth Panel to advise the governor and the legislature regarding preparedness issues. She was Managing Partner of the Harbour Group, a principal in the Bingham Consulting Group, and of counsel to Bingham McCutchen LLP.

In addition to her work at CSIS, Ms. Spaulding currently serves on a number of corporate and advisory boards, and is a member of the Homeland Security Experts Group (HSEG).

Ambassador Michele Sison was sworn in as U.S. Ambassador to Haiti on February 12, 2018. She served as U.S. Deputy Representative to the United Nations (2014-2018), U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka and Maldives (2012-2014), U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon (2008-2010), and U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (2004-2008). She began her diplomatic career in Haiti in 1982, serving as the human rights officer at Embassy Port au Prince.

Ambassador Sison’s diplomatic assignments also include Assistant Chief of Mission in Baghdad, Iraq; Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs; Deputy Chief of Mission in Islamabad, Pakistan; Consul General in Chennai, India; and tours in Côte d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Benin, and Togo. She also served as the State Department’s Director of Career Development and Assignments. Ambassador Sison is the recipient of the U.S. Presidential Distinguished Service Award, U.S. Presidential Meritorious Service Award, and the U.S. Department of the Army’s Outstanding Civilian Service Medal. She also holds numerous U.S. Department of State awards, including Superior Honor Awards and Ambassadorial-level awards for her contributions to counter-proliferation (2008) and combatting trafficking in persons (2005). Ambassador Sison holds the rank of Career Ambassador.

Vanda Felbab-Brown is a senior fellow in the 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. Previously, she was the co-director of the Brookings project, “Improving Global Drug Policy: Comparative Perspectives Beyond UNGASS 2016,” as well as of another Brookings project, “Reconstituting Local Orders.” 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 a senior advisor to the congressionally-mandated Afghanistan Peace Process Study Group.

Felbab-Brown is the author of “The Extinction Market: Wildlife Trafficking and How to Counter It” (Hurst, 2018); “Narco Noir: Mexico’s Cartels, Cops, and Corruption” (The Brookings Institution Press, 2021, forthcoming); “Militants, Criminals, and Warlords: The Challenge of Local Governance in an Age of Disorder” (The Brookings Institution Press, 2018; co-authored with Shadi Hamid and Harold Trinkunas); “Aspiration and Ambivalence: Strategies and Realities of Counterinsurgency and State-Building in Afghanistan” (Brookings Institution Press, 2013); 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. She has also been the recipient of numerous awards in recognition of her scholarly and policy contributions.

Steven Feldstein is a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program, where he focuses on issues of democracy, technology, human rights, U.S. foreign policy, and Africa. He previously served as the holder of the Frank and Bethine Church Chair of Public Affairs and an associate professor at Boise State University.

Feldstein served as a deputy assistant secretary in the Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau in the U.S. Department of State, where he had responsibility for Africa policy, international labor affairs, and international religious freedom. Previously he was the director of policy at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and also served as counsel on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he oversaw U.S. foreign assistance programs, State Department management, and international organizations.

He is the author of The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Brooke Kassner is the Deputy Director, Field Operations & Security at Internews. In this role, she manages specific safety and security management systems of Internews’ global offices ranging from physical security office management to medical and security trainings to organizational implementation and establishment of security protocols and procedures and more. Brooke has over a decade of experience working in the International NGO sector and has worked on issues regarding safety and security responses for staff, legal standards for global operations, duty of care for staff globally, organizational policy development, emergency / crisis response, and more. Brooke has traveled to over 40 countries and has significant experience on security within the INGO sector in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. She currently serves on the Steering Committee for OSACs International Development Sector Committee. Brooke holds an M.A. in Conflict & Security Analysis.

Mia Bloom is a fellow with New America’s International Security program and professor of communication and Middle East studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. She conducts ethnographic field research in Europe, the Middle East and South Asia and speaks eight languages. She has authored several books and articles on terrorism and violent extremism including Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (2005), Living Together After Ethnic Killing (2007), Bombshell: Women and Terror (2011), and Small Arms: Children and Terror (2019). Bloom is a former term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and has held appointments at Princeton, Cornell, Harvard, and McGill Universities. Bloom’s newest book is Veiled Threats; Women and Global Jihad is scheduled for 2020 release. Bloom has a PhD in political science from Columbia University, a master’s in Arab Studies from Georgetown University and a bachelor’s degree from McGill in Russian, Islamic, and Middle Eastern Studies.

Carlos F. Matus was appointed as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DS) and the Director of Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) on September 13, 2021.

Mr. Matus, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service – class of Minister-Counselor – joined DS as a DSS special agent in 1987. He has since held numerous and varied assignments throughout the world.

He began his career at the Washington Field Office. His next assignment took him to the U.S. Embassies in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and La Paz, Bolivia, until 1993. Mr. Matus then went on to DSS’ Miami Field Office, where he conducted criminal investigations. In 1995, Mr. Matus returned to Washington, DC, to serve as a passport fraud desk officer until 1997, and then as a shift leader on U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright’s protection detail until 2000. His next two assignments were at the U.S. Embassy Panama City, Panama, until 2003 and the U.S. Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan, until 2004. After Kabul, he attended the Inter-American Defense College in Washington, DC, until 2005. Mr. Matus then served in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, assigned to the Vulnerabilities Assessment Unit until 2007, where he focused on public corruption investigations associated with the passport and visa processes. During this time, Mr. Matus also served as the acting criminal investigations division chief for DSS.

From 2007 to 2009, Mr. Matus served at the U.S. Embassy in Vienna, Austria. After Austria, Mr. Matus spent some time working in DS’ Legislative Affairs Office and then served as deputy regional director for contingency operations, focusing on Afghanistan until 2011. In 2011, Mr. Matus transferred to Protective Intelligence Investigations, serving as its director, until 2016. From 2016 – 2017, he returned to the U.S. Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan, to serve as the senior regional security officer. Mr. Matus served as the deputy assistant secretary for the High Threat Programs Directorate from 2017 to 2019. Mr. Matus served as the acting deputy assistant secretary for Threat Investigations and Analysis, and acting director of DSS from 2019-2021. Throughout his career, he has also held temporary duty assignments throughout the world to include Haiti, Pakistan, and Brazil.

Mr. Matus is an individual recipient of the State Department’s Meritorious and Superior Honor Awards, as well as many other commendations; and was twice recognized by the U.S. Marine Corps as RSO of the Year for D Company. He was most recently awarded the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Executive.

Mr. Matus is a Washington, DC, native. He graduated from the University of Maryland and the Inter-American Defense College, and holds a Master’s degree in Security and Hemispheric Defense from the University of Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Claude J. Nebel became a member of the Cargill team August 2008 when he was appointed as Vice President and Chief Security Officer, Global Security. Prior to assuming these duties, Claude was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Office of Foreign Missions, U.S. Department of State, approved by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, January 2007.

Mr. Nebel began his career with the Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DSS) in 1987 as a Special Agent assigned to the Washington Field Office, and has served in many challenging positions during his tenure. These include Regional Security Officer, American Embassy Berlin, July 2005 to 2007, Regional Security Officer, American Consulate General in Frankfurt, 2004 to 2005, Special Agent in Charge of the Boston Field Office, 2001 to 2004, Regional Security Officer, Copenhagen, Denmark, 1998 to 2001, Special Agent, Criminal Investigative Liaison Branch, Washington, DC, 1995 to 1998, Regional Security Officer, American Embassy Tel Aviv, 1993 to 1995, Senior Supervisor for Protective Security Details for several former Secretaries of State and Site Security Manager for U.S. Consulates in Lahore and Peshawar, Pakistan, 1988 to 1989.

Claude has received several awards during his tenure with the Department of State including Group Superior Honor Awards in 2005 and 1995, Group Meritorious Honor Awards in 2004 and 1989 and Meritorious Honor Awards in 2001, 1997 and 1994. Mr. Nebel is also the recipient of the 2003 “Leadership Award” by the City of Boston, Federal Executive Board for outstanding leadership and management during the 9/11 terrorist crisis.

Prior to joining the Foreign Service in 1987, Mr. Nebel held positions as a management representative with LTV Steel Corporation, Houston, Texas, a hearing officer with the Court of Common Pleas in Pennsylvania, and was co-operator of a business in the food industry for a period of six years. Claude holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from St. Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania and a Master of Arts degree in Administration of Justice, Law Enforcement from the University of Pittsburgh. He currently is President, AISLO (Agriculture Industry Security Leadership Organization), a member of the International Security Management Association (ISMA), The American Society for Industrial Security (ASIS), the Executive Committee, Overseas Security Advisory Committee (OSAC), The “Risk” Committee, FBI Domestic Security Alliance Council, the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, the Diplomatic Security Special Agents Association, Greater Boston Federal Executive Board, Boston Senior Executive Board and was a member of the U.S. Attorney General’s Anti-Terrorism Task Force. Claude is married to the former Pamela Feirson and they have two sons; Michael and Gregory. They currently live in Plymouth, Minnesota.

Madeleine K. Albright is Chair of Albright Stonebridge Group, part of Dentons Global Advisors, and a professor, author, diplomat and businesswoman who served as the 64th Secretary of State of the United States. Dr. Albright received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Obama on May 29, 2012.

In 1997, Dr. Albright was named the first female Secretary of State and became, at that time, the highest ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. As Secretary of State, Dr. Albright reinforced America’s alliances, advocated for democracy and human rights, and promoted American trade, business, labor, and environmental standards abroad. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. Albright served as the U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations and was a member of the President’s Cabinet. From 1989 to 1992, she served as President of the Center for National Policy. Previously, she was a member of President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Council and White House staff and served as Chief Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Edmund S. Muskie.

Dr. Albright is a Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Dr. Albright is Chair of Albright Capital Management LLC, an investment advisory firm focused on emerging markets. She also chairs the National Democratic Institute, serves as the president of the Truman Scholarship Foundation and is Honorary Co-Chair of the World Refugee Council.

Dr. Albright is a seven-time New York Times bestselling author. Her most recent book, Hell and Other Destinations was published in April 2020. Her other books include: her autobiography, Madam Secretary: A Memoir (2003); The Mighty and the Almighty: Reflections on America, God, and World Affairs (2006); Memo to the President: How We Can Restore America’s Reputation and Leadership (2008); Read My Pins: Stories from a Diplomat’s Jewel Box (2009); Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948 (2012), and Fascism: A Warning (2018).

Dr. Albright received a B.A. with Honors from Wellesley College, and Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Columbia University’s Department of Public Law and Government, as well as a Certificate from its Russian Institute.

She is based in Washington, D.C.

Susan Gordon is currently the Director at CACI International which provides the unique expertise and distinctive technology that address customers’ greatest enterprise and mission challenges.

She was the fifth Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) from August 2017 to August 2019. As PDDNI, Sue was a key advisor to the President and National Security Council and led the 17-member Intelligence Community. With more than three decades of experience in the IC, Sue has served in a variety of leadership roles spanning numerous intelligence organizations and disciplines. Prior to the DNI, Sue served as the Deputy Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency from 2015 to 2017, helping the director lead the agency and manage the National System of Geospatial Intelligence.

Before joining the NGA, she served for 27 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, rising to senior executive positions in each of the Agency’s four directorates: operations, analysis, science and technology, and support. In 1998, she designed and drove the formation of In-Q-Tel, a private, non-profit company whose primary purpose is to deliver innovative technology solutions for the agency and the IC. She is the recipient of numerous government and industry awards, including the Distinguished Intelligence Medal and the Distinguished Presidential Rank Award. Sue earned a Bachelor of Science from Duke University. A trusted authority on strategy, innovation and leadership, Sue is currently a consultant on global risk, technology, cyber and space issues and a member of the Board at Pallas Advisors, a Washington D.C.-based consultancy.