Elisa Ewers

Senior Fellow and Director, Middle East Security Program

Elisa Ewers is a senior fellow and director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. Her research focuses on the Middle East and North Africa, Europe, counterterrorism and security cooperation, multilateral institutions, and U.S. national security decision-making.

Ewers has over twenty-five years of experience in the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government, as a thought leader and professor in think tanks and academia, and as a strategy consultant in the private sector.

Ewers served in both Democratic and Republican administrations, at the National Security Council; the Departments of State and Defense; in U.S. embassies and the U.S. Mission to the United Nations; and was selected for Senior Executive Service. Ewers led the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s policy and legislative work on the Middle East and North Africa, nonproliferation and arms control, and international economics. She has advanced U.S. relations with partners throughout the Middle East and Europe, negotiated complex bipartisan legislation, served as a principal counselor to senior leaders in both the executive and legislative branches, and exercised oversight over billions of dollars in U.S. programs.

Ewers’ analysis has appeared in outlets including the Washington Post, Newsweek, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, BBC, CNN, NPR, and XM Radio. She served as an adjunct faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Prior to government service, Ewers worked in the private sector, consulting and advising on institutional asset management.

Ewers also is a current Senior Fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.