Around the Table with Sheriff Almakki

Around the Table is a three-question interview series from the Make Room email newsletter as a part of the CNAS Make Room initiative. Each edition features a conversation with a peer in the national security community to learn about their expertise and experience in the sector.

Sheriff Almakki serves as senior AI policy analyst at Americans for Responsible Innovation, where he tackles sociotechnical and geopolitical challenges in emerging tech. He previously served as a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. Department of State and worked as an AI consultant and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear) red teamer for frontier AI labs.

You’ve gone from science to human rights at the State Department and now to AI policy—how did that happen?

In college, I loved the puzzle-solving and the rigor of biochemical research. But I kept finding myself drawn to a different set of puzzles. As a second-generation Syrian American, I got heavily involved in refugee advocacy during the 2010s and worked with other Syrian Americans to engage our community with policymakers on the Syrian Civil War, which taught me that the problems I cared about most required policy solutions.

Graduate school at Michigan gave me the toolkit to help tackle these problems, and I was able to use my scientific background to explore science and technology policy—initially, I saw it as being helpful in international affairs, but then I also found myself becoming more excited about AI policy itself. This ended up being an asset during my time at State, when few were thinking about AI’s impact beyond technological and economic competition. My whole career has benefited from my analytical training, and with AI and emerging tech reshaping every policy domain, having that technical fluency has opened doors I didn't expect.

How have you developed your career outside of work? What is your 5–9 like?

I’m a big believer in increasing your surface area for serendipity. I’ve been involved with the University of Michigan D.C. Alumni Club, which helps me stay connected to my roots and meet other Midwest transplants. I also mentor Purdue and University of Michigan students, helping students from the Heartland navigate the transition to policy careers here. Book talks and think tank events are a regular part of my calendar—one of my favorite parts of D.C. is that there are experts on any given subject around every corner, and you can just show up and ask them questions! It’s like a constant stream of academic seminars.

On a more personal level, I host monthly, themed open-invite potlucks. Community building is a core value of mine, and I've found that bringing people together over food creates friendships that feel less transactional than the typical D.C. networking events. I also try to climb and lift weights regularly—if I’m skipping morning workouts, that’s usually my alarm for rebalancing my life and commitments.

How has mentorship influenced your career?

I wouldn’t be here without mentors who took chances on me. One of my professors at Michigan had a similar journey to mine—biochemistry to law and international policy, so he understood the transition I was making. Beyond teaching me to write memos for busy principals and navigate political dynamics, he modeled something important: how to make everyone in the room feel like their contributions mattered.

Coming from STEM, I expected careers to follow clear lines in either academia or industry, with predictable milestones. Mentors in the policy world taught me it works differently here. You’re better served by continuously growing, staying curious, and being ready to take exciting opportunities when they land on your desk. That reframe was liberating. It gave me permission to build a career that makes sense in retrospect even if it didn’t follow a predetermined path.

By far the best lesson I have learned is that you should always bet on yourself. In uncertain times post graduation and following the reshaping of the federal workforce, the affirmation that I could succeed was both crucial and proved true—whatever comes my way, I now know that I have both the support and the skills necessary to land on my feet.