Evan A. Feigenbaum

Evan Feigenbaum is senior fellow for East, Central, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. Initially an academic with a PhD in Chinese politics, his work in both government and the private sector has since spanned all three major regions of Asia.

From 2001 to 2009, he served at the State Department as deputy assistant secretary of state for India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Maldives, as well as South Asian regional affairs from 2007-09, deputy assistant secretary of state for Central Asia  2006-07, member of the policy planning staff with principal responsibility for China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia from 2001-06, and as an adviser on China to Deputy Secretary of State Robert B. Zoellick, with whom he worked closely in the development of the U.S.-China senior dialogue. During the intensive final phase of the U.S.-India civil nuclear initiative from July to October 2008, he co-chaired the coordinating team charged with moving the initiative through the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, and then to Congress, where it became the U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation Approval and Nonproliferation Enhancement Act. He received the Department’s superior honor award five times.

Before government service, Dr. Feigenbaum worked at Harvard University  from 1997-2001, where he was lecturer on government in the faculty of arts and sciences and executive director of the Asia-Pacific security initiative and program chair of the Chinese security studies program in the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He also taught at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School from 1994-95 as lecturer of national security affairs and was a consultant on China to the RAND Corporation from 1993-94.

Dr. Feigenbaum holds a PhD and AM in political science from Stanford University and an AB in history from the University of Michigan.