Staff Biographies
John Alulis
SENIOR ANALYST
Neha AnsarI
SENIOR ANALYST
Neha has worked as a journalist and editor in Pakistan for almost a decade, focusing on political violence, the war on terrorism, counterterrorism, and U.S. Pakistan relations. She wrote her PhD dissertation on increased effectiveness and acceptance of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area, conducting fieldwork spanning 116 qualitative interviews in northwestern Pakistan. Her findings had implications for the war in Afghanistan and U.S. counterterrorism efforts. Through research fellowships, Neha has conducted research for the State Department, National Defense University, and Sandia National Laboratories. She holds a BA (Honors) and MA from the University of Karachi, Pakistan, and an MA in law and diplomacy and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
Catherine Bateman
DEPUTY research director
Kate brings more than 20 years of experience as a researcher and policy practitioner, spanning the Department of State, the Department of Defense, Congress, an oversight agency, and think tanks. For more than 11 years, she has worked in and on Afghanistan, including a tour at the U.S. Embassy Kabul from 2010 to 2012. Kate was previously a senior expert on Afghanistan at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), a project lead in the Lessons Learned Program at the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, and a Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow. She has led major research initiatives on the Afghan conflict, including on U.S. negotiations with the Taliban, anticorruption, women’s rights, and reintegration of ex-combatants. Kate’s published work has appeared in Foreign Affairs, Lawfare, The Hill, Proceedings, and The National Interest, in addition to her work at USIP and a chapter in The Great Power Competition, volume 4, Lessons Learned in Afghanistan: America’s Longest War, published by Springer.
Destini Berry
operations associate
Destini served for two years as an operations analyst with the National Commission on Military Aviation and Safety. She brings knowledge of the administrative challenges of running a legislative commission and the experience of overcoming those obstacles. In addition to her time in government service, Destini has a long background in managing the administrative and financial aspects of a private sector medical practice.
Jeremy Butler
director of operations
Jeremy joined the Afghanistan War Commission from We the Veterans, a nonprofit, nonpartisan democracy organization, where he served as chief growth officer and advocated for civic participation of veterans. He previously served as the chief executive officer of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America whose staff he joined in 2015, working in various capacities with the fundraising team. In 2018 he transitioned to chief operating officer and in 2019 took over as CEO. Jeremy served on active duty in the Navy from 1999 to 2005 as a surface warfare officer. He transitioned to the Reserves and has remained there since, being currently assigned to the staff of Commander, Naval Surface Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet. Coming off active duty, Jeremy began working for a D.C.-based government contractor; he served in a variety of roles, including work for the Department of Homeland Security, the Joint Staff, and the Department of the Navy. Throughout, he spent several years back on active duty both overseas and in the United States. He attended Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and graduated with an international relations major. Jeremy received his MA in national security and strategic studies from the U.S. Naval War College.
Jaime Cheshire
senior advisor , previous executive director ( 2023- 2026)
Jaime Cheshire is a national security professional with 26 years of service on Capitol Hill and as a senior intelligence service officer in the Intelligence Community. As one of the Commission’s first hires, she served as our executive director from July 2023 until May 2026. Previously, Jaime served as executive secretary of the Central Intelligence Agency, where she oversaw the Operations Center, providing 24/7 support to agency leadership and the White House. As director of the Office of Congressional Affairs, she advised the agency’s senior leadership on all legislative strategy and served as the agency’s liaison to the U.S. Congress. For her service, she received the Presidential Rank Award and the Director’s Award three times. From 2009 to 2017, Jaime served as senior advisor to the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. She helped enact seven consecutive National Defense Authorization Acts while navigating committee and floor debates on critical national security issues. In that role, she conducted six oversight trips into Afghanistan. Earlier in her career, Jaime served as legislative director to Rep. Buck McKeon (California) and her home district representative, Rep. Nancy Johnson (Connecticut), a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee. Jaime served as a member of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean’s Advisory Board at the University of Connecticut, her alma mater. She completed her lifelong goal of a 2,200-mile thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2021.
Akmal Dawi
senior writer
Akmal joined the Commission from Voice of America, where he worked as an editor and journalist in 2011; he had previously worked for the United Nations and the BBC in Afghanistan. Akmal served as a linguist during the 2019–2020 U.S.-Taliban negotiations in Doha, Qatar. Among other duties, he simultaneously translated the phone call between President Trump and Mullah Baradar in March 2020. Akmal is the author of a Pashto novel about the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–1842), and a second book on the plight of women in Afghanistan
Edmund J. "EJ" Degen
executive officer and chief, military operations and security forces assistance team
EJ is a retired career U.S. Army field artillery officer who rose to the rank of colonel and most recently served as the director of the Chief of Staff, Army’s Operation Enduring Freedom Study Group. He commanded artillery units at all levels through brigade and served as the V Corps (U.S.) chief of plans for the Iraq invasion at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom; chief of future operations for U.S. Forces Korea; and chief of staff for Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 in Afghanistan. He had multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He was a fellow on the Chief of Staff, Army, inaugural Strategic Studies Group and served as the senior fellow the following year. He earned an MMAS from the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies and an MS in strategic and operational planning from the Joint Advanced Warfighting School. He has coauthored two official U.S. Army histories: On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Modern War in an Ancient Land: The United States Army in Afghanistan, 2001–2014.
Alisha Deluty
Analyst
Alisha served at the U.S. Department of State for nine years, primarily in the Bureau of Counterterrorism. During that time, she worked on policy and initiatives to counter Iran and Hizballah, led counterterrorism strategic planning efforts for South and Central America and East Asia and the Pacific, and served as the bureau’s congressional affairs liaison. Before working at the Counterterrorism Bureau, Alisha was a Presidential Management Fellow in State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, serving as the program officer for the Middle East and North Africa. She previously worked in State’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and its Office of International Religious Freedom, as well as at the U.S. Department of Defense. She has also served as a counterterrorism consultant for the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law. Alisha holds an MA in Middle East studies from the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs, a BA in Middle East and Asian languages and cultures from Columbia University, and a BA from the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Dan Elinoff
senior Analyst
Dan is a seasoned defense analyst with deep research expertise in U.S. national security policy and infrastructure, security cooperation, security force assistance, and force readiness. He joined the commission from RAND, where he most recently conducted interviews with former high-level security forces assistance practitioners and planners in Afghanistan, as well as an extensive review of government, academic, and nongovernment organization documents regarding international security assistance to the Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces. Dan is a U.S. Army veteran who deployed to Iraq as a route clearance medic and to Afghanistan as a combat advisor to the Afghan National Army. He holds a BA in international affairs from George Washington University and an MA in war studies from King’s College London.
Alice Falk, PhD
copyeditor (associate)
Alice has more than 40 years’ experience as a teacher and editor. Her past clients include major university presses, W. W. Norton, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. She has edited reports for many government commissions, including the 9/11 Commission, the Iraq Study Group, the Financial Inquiry Commission, the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, the Commission for the Review of R&D Programs for the U.S. Intelligence Community, and the Defense Advisory Committee on Investigation, Prosecution, and Defense of Sexual Assault in the Armed Forces. Among her degrees are a PhD in English literature with a minor in women’s studies from Indiana University, an MA in Greek and Latin literature and philosophy from Oxford University, and a BA in English and Latin from Yale University.
Regina Faranda
Senior analyst
Regina joined the Commission in December 2025 after a 25-year career in the U.S. Intelligence Community. She was deputy assistant secretary for analysis in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. In that role, she directed the writing and briefing of intelligence across the department, including to the secretary of state and other principal staff. A career member of the Senior Executive Service, Regina was the director of INR’s Office of Opinion Research from 2016 to 2022; she previously served as deputy director of that office, chief of the Europe and Eurasia Division, and analyst for Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, and Afghanistan. She was named INR’s “Analyst of the Year” in 2010 for her support to senior policymakers, one of numerous meritorious and superior honor awards she’s received during her career. Gina entered U.S. government service as a presidential management fellow after completing a master’s degree at Georgetown. In addition, Gina holds degrees from Ohio State University and Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute and has certificates in quantitative methods from the University of Maryland, the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Herzen Institute.
Leah Fiddler
cheif, Policy and diplomacy team
Leah brings years of executive branch experience: at the Pentagon, the White House, and then the National Security Council across presidential administrations. She wrote on the president’s behalf to everyday Americans; served in the NSC’s Development, Democracy, and Humanitarian Assistance Directorate; was chief of staff of the Transnational Threats Directorate; and supported two Homeland Security advisors. Prompted by the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, she helped coordinate the Truman Center for National Policy’s Afghanistan Operations Center, which stood up its own airline and, in 2021, evacuated thousands of at-risk Afghans, many at the U.S. government’s request. Previously, she conducted research for the Comparative Constitutions Project on Afghanistan’s governance challenges. At the Digital Forensic Research Lab, she worked at the intersection of technology and democracy. She is a term member at the Council on Foreign Relations and a security fellow at the Truman Center for National Policy. Her degrees are from the University of Southern California and the University of Chicago.
Paul Fishstein
Senior advisor
Paul has more than 40 years’ experience in research, design, and management of development and humanitarian assistance programs, with a focus on Afghanistan and South Asia. His Afghanistan-related research and analysis include aid and security, the economy, rural livelihoods, and the healthcare system. Paul worked as a team lead in the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction’s Lessons Learned Program. Prior to that, he served as an Afghanistan-Pakistan fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School; visiting fellow at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University; and director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit. Paul previously worked as a senior program officer for a nonprofit organization providing technical assistance to health organizations in developing countries, including Afghanistan from 2002 to 2004. He worked as a researcher on agricultural policy and food security at the World Bank, and he holds an MS in agricultural and resource economics and a BA in English literature and education.
Rory Gates
analyst
Rory is currently a PhD candidate at the Institute for World Politics, where he is finishing a dissertation that analyzes the efficacy of psychological warfare and brainwashing with a focus on right-wing extremism in America since the Civil War. Previously, Rory was a policy fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute, where he focused on Chinese influence operations in the West Pacific. Before that he worked as an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency, as an open-source analyst for Advance Democracy, and as a research assistant in criminology/political science. Rory earned his BA in creative writing/political science with honors and his MA in international relations (magna cum laude) from the University of Chicago, where he completed his thesis on international relations theory under the supervision of John Mearsheimer.
Matthew Gobush
deputy executive director and strategic communications advisor
Matt served as director of communications for the National Security Council and as foreign policy spokesman and speechwriter in the Office of the Vice President. Prior to working at the White House, he served as a staff specialist for international and commercial programs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. During the Afghanistan War’s initial phases, Matt was press secretary for the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee minority staff, and later director of communications for Senate Armed Services Committee member Joe Lieberman. Most recently, he was communications manager for Exxon Mobil Corporation. During his career, he has been privileged to directly support a sitting president, vice president, senator, congressman, and two chief executive officers, as well as two future U.S. secretaries of state of different political parties. He has written on foreign policy, military ethics, and veterans affairs, and led the Military Chaplains Just War Education Project for the Episcopal Church. A graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Matt, with his wife, Gari Lister, has six internationally adopted daughters.
Avery Parsons Grayson
senior analyst
Avery brings expertise on governance in Islamic contexts, including from her nongovernmental organization work in Indonesia, on the Syria Desk at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Middle East headquarters, and in the media/think tank space, where she worked as a senior analyst for international security at Foreign Policy magazine. At the Overseas Development Institute in London, she implemented the “Lessons for Peace: Afghanistan” program, which analyzed lessons learned through the lens of governance and international cooperation. In addition, in 2021 she managed The New Arab’s opinion and analysis coverage of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Avery has an MSc in Middle East politics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and a BA in global affairs–international security from Yale University.
Stephanie Darlene Greenwald
Graphic designer (associate)
Stephanie Darlene Greenwald is a graphic designer and artist living in Arlington, Virginia, who designed the Commission’s first two interim reports, develops and maintains the Commission’s visual identity, and provides design services for its online and in-person outreach communications. Originally from Pennsylvania, she graduated from Arcadia University with a bachelor’s of fine arts and began her own graphic design business, Polished Creative Studio, in 2002. Her work for nonprofits, organizations, and associations throughout the capital region includes branding and visual identities for organizations, events, and initiatives; digital and print marketing materials, publications, and annual reports; charts and infographics; web and social media graphics; displays; and environmental design. In 2021, Stephanie expanded into art licensing and illustration, providing artwork for home decor, garden products, and giftware sold through retailers nationwide. Her illustrations are also sold on cards and as art prints online and are exhibited in local art galleries. Stephanie is a member of the Del Ray Artisans and the Art League in Alexandria, Virginia.
Natalie L. Hall
Special assistant and analyst
Natalie is a researcher with experience as a fellow at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs and a research assistant to Dr. Alexander Cooley (Harriman Institute, Columbia University). Natalie’s publication credits include the Uyghur Human Rights Project and articles in Globalizations, The Diplomat, The Hill, and Newsweek. She has briefed her research and analysis to several U.S. government bodies, including the National Security Council, FBI, and Department of State. Natalie regularly attends international conferences on Central Asia, Russia, and the war in Ukraine. Prior to the Commission, she contracted for the U.S. government as a senior supply chain risk management analyst at Exiger, specializing on Russia and China. She previously worked as a program coordinator at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Russia and Eurasia Program). She has an MA in Russian and Eurasian studies from Columbia University with a focus on Central Asia, and she wrote her thesis on Kazakhstan’s national identity, political mobilization, and state violence. She lived for six months in Kazakhstan, where she studied Russian and learned about Central Asia’s culture, history, politics, economics, and international relations. She has a BA in international affairs with a concentration in security policy and minors in history and Slavic studies from George Washington University.
Jamie Hammon
budget analyst
Jamie is a certified defense financial manager with 15 years of experience managing the budgets of congressionally authorized boards, commissions, and task forces. She brings extensive knowledge of federal funds management and execution, having previously been the lead budget analyst for the Task Force for Business Stability Operations; the National Commission on the Future of the Army; the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service; the National Commission on Military Aviation Safety; the USA Vietnam War Commemoration; and, currently, the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology and the National Commission on the Future of the Navy, alongside the Afghanistan War Commission. She received a BA in piano performance from West Virginia University, and an MA in journalism from Boston University.
James "Jamie" E. Hayes III
chief, Counterterrorism and intelligence assessments team
Jamie is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who most recently served as the U.S. Army Chair at the National Defense University and National War College. He commanded special operations units at every level from Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha to Special Operations Command-Forward. His combat and operational service includes multiple deployments to Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, and Yemen. At the policy and strategic level, Jamie served as chief of staff in the Joint Staff J3 Deputy Directorate for Special Operations and Counterterrorism and as military assistant to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and holds graduate degrees from the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies and the Marine Corps War College.
Jennifer M. Hazen, PhD
cheif, development team
Jennifer is a senior research analyst with more than 20 years of extensive, on-the-ground experience in conflict and post-conflict countries, specializing in conflict dynamics, armed groups, and security sector governance. Previously, she served as a civil-military advisor with the U.S. Agency for International Development, a civil-military advisor embedded in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict, the director of the Africa Regional Studies program at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. State Department, a senior advisor and analyst at U.S. Africa Command, a senior researcher at the Small Arms Survey, a political affairs officer at the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Sierra Leone, and an analyst at International Crisis Group. She holds a PhD in international relations from Georgetown University with research experience in more than a dozen countries in Africa, Asia, and Europe.
Pamela Hernandez
research assistant
Prior to joining the Afghanistan War Commission, Pamela served at the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Embassy in Lisbon, and the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Her professional experience spans research support, communications, and policy analysis focused on international and public policy issues. Pamela holds an MS in foreign service from Georgetown University, with a concentration in global politics and security, and a BA in political science and women’s and gender studies from Rutgers University–New Brunswick.
Nakissa Jahanbani, PhD
Senior analyst
Nakissa is a former researcher at the Combating Terrorism Center and assistant professor in the Department of Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. At West Point, she taught classes on terrorism and conducted policy-oriented, mixed methods research on the Iran Threat Network and terrorist groups, including the Islamic State Khorasan Province. Her work has appeared in various policy outlets, including Lawfare and War on the Rocks, and academic journals, including Terrorism and Political Violence. She obtained her PhD in political science from the University at Albany, State University of New York. Her thesis focused on examining the drivers and modalities of state-sponsored support for rebel groups. She brings a detailed understanding of violent organizations and the states that support them, notably Iran, and will expertly lead the Commission’s substantive work on state and non-state adversary decision-making. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mariam Jalalzada
Senior Advisor for afghan outreach
Mariam plays a central role in ensuring that the Commission’s work reflects a wide range of Afghan perspectives. She helps shape outreach strategy, advises on research priorities, and coordinates engagements with Afghan stakeholders to strengthen the Commission’s overall analysis. Mariam brings more than 16 years of experience working on Afghanistan’s post-2001 recovery efforts, including managing programs that aimed at improving local livelihoods and civic engagement. Prior to joining the Commission, Mariam served as a senior research analyst at the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, where she played a key role in planning, coordinating, and shaping lessons-learned reports on U.S. efforts in Afghanistan. After earning a master’s degree in international development from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Mariam returned to Kabul, her hometown, where she worked on initiatives that focused on community stability and economic opportunity. Throughout her career, she has overseen research and programs examining how communities navigate conflict, sustain livelihoods, and rebuild social trust in the aftermath of war.
Meredith Johnston
deputy general counsel
Meredith has 15 years’ experience providing high-level legal advice and strategic guidance to senior officials across the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. She previously served as deputy legal advisor at the National Security Council and special counsel to the general counsel at the Department of Defense. She spent more than a decade in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Department of State, helping senior leaders to navigate a wide range of complex issues, including matters related to the law of armed conflict, human rights law, refugee law, and embassy security and evacuations.
Brenton Krieger
senior advisor for legislative affairs
Brenton brings more than five years of experience on Capitol Hill, where he served in the office of U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois. In his role as the senator’s principal policy advisor on economic issues, Brenton managed a broad portfolio covering international trade, banking, taxation in global finance, trade, and economic integration from the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs at the University of Denver, where he also earned bachelor’s degrees in economics and international studies., and small business policy. He also led Senator Duckworth’s work on the federal appropriations process—overseeing both programmatic funding and congressionally directed spending—to help direct federal investments to communities across Illinois. Brenton holds a master’s degree
Genevieve Lester, PhD
senior advisor
Genevieve is an expert on intelligence, decision-making, and covert action. From 2016 to 2023 she was the De Serio Chair of Strategic Intelligence at the U.S. Army War College, where she led scholarship, research, and outreach on intelligence matters. She has held positions at Georgetown University; the National Defense University Joint Special Operations Master of Arts program; Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs), where she was an editor of the journal International Affairs; and RAND. She is on several editorial boards for major national security journals. She holds a PhD and an MA in political science from the University of California, Berkeley; an MA in international economics/international law and organizations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies; and a BA in history from Carleton College in Minnesota. She was also a Fulbright scholar at the Technical University in Berlin. She is the author of When Should State Secrets Stay Secret? Accountability, Democratic Governance, and Intelligence and a coeditor of Covert Action: National Approaches to Unacknowledged Intervention, and she has numerous other publications on intelligence and related matters. She is currently completing a monograph on the consumption of strategic intelligence for decision-making.
Tiffany Mansfield
archivist
Tiffany Mansfield is a senior federal records and information management professional with more than 15 years of experience leading complex records programs in support of executive decision-making, government oversight, and historical preservation. Tiffany served in the Marine Corps as a forensic photographer during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Following her military service, she served as a management analyst and team lead at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations, where she directed an enterprise records and archival management program covering more than 25,000 overseas real property assets in 290 locations. She oversaw compliance with the Federal Records Act, Title 44, and National Archives and Records Administration standards; prepared defensible record sets for Freedom of Information Act requests, congressional inquiries, Government Accountability Office reviews, and inspector general audits; and led the integration of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) legacy records into State Department systems following USAID’s dissolution. She also reconciled and validated $602 million in federally controlled assets, resolving long–standing documentation gaps. Tiffany holds a BS in business administration with a concentration in federal contracting from Strayer University and a professional certificate in records management from the National Archives. She has completed advanced training through MIT, Harvard, George Washington University, the Foreign Service Institute, and the Defense Acquisition University.
Adam Mauser
senior analyst
Adam comes to the Commission after serving as a senior policy advisor at the State Department’s Bureau for Conflict and Stability Operations, where he was co-lead for implementing the Global Fragility Act (GFA) across the department. Adam oversaw the GFA’s budget, was a co-lead of the Environmental Security Team, authored several laws, and was a leader of the department’s Afghanistan Task Force refugee operation at the Dulles Expo Center in Virginia. Before joining State, Adam was a senior policy advisor at the Pentagon’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. He was the Pentagon’s head action officer for stabilization, leading teams focused on Defense support to stabilization, irregular warfare, U.N. peacekeeping, environmental instability, and the GFA. Adam also spent three years at the Pentagon as an Afghanistan Country Director, focused on the development of Afghan security forces, congressional affairs, security metrics, women in the Afghan security forces, and kinetic legal authorities. As a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Adam coauthored five books on the development of the Afghan and Iraqi security forces. He received a BA in political science from Vassar College, studied at the King’s College London War Studies Department, and received a master’s degree in security studies from Georgetown University in 2008.
Janna Mantua, PhD
Chief, Interviews and information management team
Janna is a defense scientist with a background in biomedical and behavioral research. Her early work at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research focused on human performance and operational effectiveness in Special Operations Forces. She later transitioned to strategic-level research roles at the Institute for Defense Analyses, where she was assigned to the Science and Technology Division, and at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, where she supported analytic efforts in the Global Shaping Division. Janna currently supports the Commission’s knowledge management efforts, overseeing the development and implementation of systems and processes that integrate interviews, archival materials, and documentary evidence to support research and analysis. She holds a doctorate in behavioral neuroscience and a master’s degree in military studies.
Julie Martin
general counsel
Julie Martin has served for nearly two decades as a trusted legal advisor to senior national security and foreign policy officials on a broad range of novel and complex issues. Immediately prior to joining the Commission, Julie served as a deputy general counsel in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), where she oversaw practice groups providing primary legal support to the chief operating officer, Directorate of Policy and Capabilities, and the National Counterterrorism and National Counterproliferation and Biosecurity Centers. She served as an interim senior policy advisor for privacy and civil liberties and has considerable experience in the fields of counterterrorism, IC support to screening and vetting, and protections for U.S. persons in the conduct of intelligence collection and analysis. Prior to her tenure with the ODNI, Julie enjoyed a varied career with the Department of State Office of the Legal Adviser, which included practice in the areas of congressional oversight, human rights law, the law of armed conflict, intelligence, transnational extradition, and counternarcotics programs. She also served as U.S. Embassy Baghdad legal advisor from 2009 to 2010. She clerked for Chief Judge Andrew S. Effron of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
Bridget Matty
senior analyst
Bridget joined the Commission with more than 18 years of national security policy and strategic planning experience. She previously served at the National Counterterrorism Center, where she managed teams driving counterterrorism mission implementation, led business operations as chief of staff for the Directorate of Strategic Operational Planning, and partnered with security officials across seven states as regional representative in Denver, Colorado. Bridget was director for countering violent extremism for the National Security Council during the Obama and Trump administrations, and she coauthored the first-ever National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, issued by President Biden in 2021. In 2015, Bridget led an effort to improve U.S. government policy and practices for hostage recovery by incorporating perspectives from families and former hostages. She also was part of the multiagency team that drafted and implemented the first national strategy to prevent terrorist recruitment and radicalization in the United States. Earlier in her career, Bridget served as a legislative liaison for the Department of Homeland Security and worked for Senator George Voinovich of Ohio. She holds a master’s degree in global security studies from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in communication and rhetorical studies from Syracuse University.
Colin McKeague
analyst
Colin worked for almost eight years at the Archdiocese for the Military Services, where he transformed administrative processing into a highly efficient system and effectively managed proprietary and nonproprietary databases. He has extensive experience proofreading and editing document drafts, ensuring accuracy and clarity of the final copy. Colin earned his master’s in international security from George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government.
Eric Minton
chief, writing and production team
Eric has served as the editor, writer, and production manager for three prior commissions: on Military Aviation Safety, on the Future of the Army, and on the Structure of the Air Force. With the Department of Defense’s Vietnam War Commemoration, Eric organized and operated Camp Legacy, a 100-exhibitor display on the National Mall, part of the commemoration’s May 2023 “Welcome Home” program for Vietnam veterans. Eric was editor in chief of the Reserve Officers Association’s magazine The Officer, a copyeditor for the Association of the U.S. Army, and a project manager for the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. He has an MH in disabilities studies from Wright State University, a BJ from the University of Missouri School of Journalism, and 52 years of professional experience in newspapers, magazines, and online publications. The spouse of a now-retired Air Force colonel, he also manages Shakespeareances.com, a website dedicated to Shakespeare in performance and pop culture.
Matthew Parkes
research assistant
Matthew has more than seven years of research experience on Afghanistan as program officer for the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) Afghanistan and Central Asia program, where he focused on research initiatives, project implementation, and financial management for program activities. In pursuing these projects, which addressed the root causes of conflict and terrorism and promoted regional security cooperation, he visited the region three to four times annually to oversee field operations and participate in conferences funded by the U.S. State Department’s C5+1 Initiative, which enhances coordination between the United States and the five republics of Central Asia. Matthew has extensive experience implementing training, Track 1.5/2 dialogues, and research projects that engage regional experts and civil society leaders on key regional conflict and governance issues, including the prevention of violent extremism and atrocities, resource and border management, sustainable peace processes, and the reintegration of Central Asian citizens from the war zones in Iraq and Syria. Prior to USIP, he worked at PeaceTech Lab and AG International Law. He has an MA in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and a BA in political science and genocide studies from Keene State College.
Nainika Ashok Paul, PhD
analyst
Prior to the Commission, Nainika worked in the Library of Congress–Federal Research Division as a researcher in the Law and Criminal Justice Section. While there, she worked on literature reviews, reports, and summaries meant for the executive branch, including the State Department, Minority Business Development Administration, and the library’s internal offices. In 2019, she served as a Harold Rosenthal fellow at the Department of Defense Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Pakistan Desk. She is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Maryland Global campus, teaching undergraduate students introductory principles of counterterrorism policy and international relations theory. Nainika earned her PhD in women and politics at Rutgers University and an MA in conflict management and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., where she undertook research evaluating gender parity in Iraq and examining the possibilities for consociationalism in Afghanistan
Mark Reardon
senior analyst
Mark served as an armor officer in the U.S. Army from 1979 to 2006, earning the Airborne and Air Assault badges and Ranger tab while also graduating from the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College. The last five years of his Army career he spent at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, where he authored a brochure on Stryker Brigade operations in Iraq, three chapters in an anthology focusing on innovation by the U.S. Army, two chapters on contemporary military operations for the U.S. Army’s ROTC history manual, and numerous articles for ARMY History and several commercially published magazines. In May 2006, he transitioned to federal civilian service as a professional historian at the Center of Military History, remaining until his retirement in 2019. He is the author of Victory at Mortain: Stopping Hitler’s Panzer Counteroffensive, published by University Press of Kansas; editor of Defending Fortress Europe: The War Diary of the German 7th Army in Normandy, 6 June to 26 July 1944, published by Aberjona Press; coauthor of American Iliad: A History of the 18th Infantry Regiment in World War II, also published by Aberjona; and coauthor of a two-volume collection titled Modern War in an Ancient Land: The United States Army in Afghanistan, 2001–2014, produced by the Office of the Army Chief of Staff. He also recently completed the first volume of the official history of the U.S. Army in the Global War on Terrorism, slated to be published in 2026, which focuses on training and equipping the post-Saddam Iraqi Army.
Iain Robertson
chief of staff
Iain joined the Commission from the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) at the Atlantic Council, where he served for more than five years as deputy managing editor. In that role, he helped manage a large, global team of researchers and oversaw the production of many of the DFRLab’s short- and long-form reports. Prior to his time at the DFRLab, Iain served six years at the White House, where he started with the Office of Presidential Correspondence before transitioning to the Executive Secretariat of the National Security Council. He draws on the latter experience extensively for his role as chief of staff with the Commission, overseeing its strategic calendar as well as taskings and paper flow to the co-chairs and commissioners. Iain holds an MBA from Georgetown University, including a certificate in nonmarket strategy, and a BA in media studies from Carleton College.
Harris Azhar Samad
special assistant and analyst
As a special assistant, Harris supports the co-chairs, commissioners, and senior leadership on executive operations. As an analyst, he supports the Commission’s research and writing efforts on policy and diplomacy topics pertaining to the Afghanistan War. Harris’s research and expertise is primarily on U.S.-Pakistan and Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. Prior to joining the Commission, Harris was associate director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. He also worked at Legacy International, the Embassy of Iraq, and as a research assistant at Georgetown University. He has an MA in conflict resolution from Georgetown University and a BA in political science from the University of Pittsburgh.
Paul Schaffner
analyst
Paul started his career in 2009, serving eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps deploying to Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He was also attached to the U.S. Department of State for three years as a Marine Embassy Security Guard and deployed to the Western Pacific with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. After leaving the Marine Corps, he worked as an analyst at the RAND Corporation researching U.S. national security policy issues for senior Department of Defense clients and stakeholders. Paul holds a master’s of international affairs in international security policy from Columbia University, an MA in international security from Sciences Po in Paris, France, and a BA in international development and conflict resolution from Portland State University.
Pamela G. Faber Shearman
Research director
Pamela is an experienced research leader, policy analyst, and national security advisor who has led large-scale research projects across a range of issues including counterterrorism, security force assistance, and civilian harm in conflict. She most recently worked for the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a federally funded research and development center, where she served as a project director, senior research scientist, and coordinator of CNA’s Africa Security portfolio. Pamela has designed, directed, and authored numerous research reports for senior government officials within the Department of Defense, State Department, and Intelligence Community. She has also conducted extensive fieldwork on a range of security issues in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mali, Kenya, Guinea, Benin, Ghana, Cameroon, Senegal, and Chad, among other countries. She holds an MPhil in international development from St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford; an MSc in international relations from the London School of Economics; a BA in political science from Columbia University; and a BA in history from List College, the Jewish Theological Seminary.
Neilesh Shelat
executive director, interim
Neilesh Shelat has led two of the Commission’s research and analysis teams: Development & Governance, and Policy & Diplomacy. In these roles, he oversaw research related to Presidential wartime decision-making, National Security Council deliberations, diplomatic efforts, regional actors, Afghan government, and development and reconstruction. Shelat has served for eighteen years in the federal government, including senior executive roles at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), including serving as Executive Secretary, as Defeating ISIS Coordinator, and as Deputy Assistant Administrator in the Bureau for Conflict Prevention and Stabilization and the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance. He has also served as a Director on the National Security Council, and as adjunct faculty at both George Washington and Georgetown universities. Neilesh deployed to Iraq and northeast Syria to advise U.S. and coalition forces on stabilization activities in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. In support of Operation Enduring Freedom, he deployed to Helmand, Kandahar, Ghazni, Wardak, and Kabul, working alongside U.S., Polish, Turkish, and other NATO and Afghan military forces as part of Provincial Reconstruction and District Support Teams; and he additionally served as a development advisor to the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan.
Luis Veritz
senior analyst
Luis joined the Commission from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), where he served as a senior policy analyst. His performance audits with SIGAR reviewed topics that included the Afghan military’s management of infrastructure, the use of conditionality in Afghan National Defense and Security Forces development, and the Afghan government’s anticorruption initiatives. He deployed to SIGAR’s office at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul for a six-month detail in 2017. Luis has a BA in political science with honors in international security studies from Stanford University.
Scott Worden
senior analyst
Scott has worked for more than two decades in Washington and in senior roles with the U.S. government, United Nations, and nonprofit organizations, concentrating on development and security issues in Central and South Asia. From 2016 through 2025 Scott was the director of the Afghanistan and Central Asia Program at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), where he oversaw projects on elections, peace processes, counter-extremism, women’s rights, and building the rule of law. Previously, Scott served as director of the Lessons Learned Program at the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) and as a senior policy advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs. Internationally, Scott served as commissioner of Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission, adjudicating election disputes during the 2009 presidential elections, and as a legal advisor with the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. Scott received a BA from Colgate University and his JD from Harvard Law School.
Katherine Zimmerman
senior analyst
Katherine, a recognized expert on Salafi-jihadi groups, is a former fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. While at the institute, she also advised the Critical Threats Project, an open-source intelligence research team that she helped develop. She has testified multiple times before Congress about threats to U.S. national security interests emanating from al-Qaeda and its network and has briefed members of the U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence community at multiple echelons. She has published extensively on Salafi-jihadi groups and U.S. counterterrorism efforts, including in CNN, CTC Sentinel, Foreign Policy, Journal of National Security Law and Policy, Military Times, PRISM, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. She has a MA in terrorism, security, and society from King’s College London and a BA in political science and modern Middle Eastern studies from Yale University. She was a term member with the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the RESOLVE Network Research Advisory Council, and she served as a 2024 nonresident fellow at the Irregular Warfare Initiative.