Mr. Leo Michel is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies—the strategic “think tank” of National Defense University (Fort McNair, Washington, DC)—where he concentrates on transatlantic security issues. Before joining INSS in July 2002, Mr. Michel was Director for NATO Policy within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). His office was responsible for policy support to the Secretary and other senior Defense officials in areas such as NATO defense planning and capabilities, operations, enlargement, Partnership for Peace, and NATO-European Union relations.
During more than 17 years of service in OSD’s Policy directorate, Mr. Michel’s positions included:
- first OSD representative seconded to the senior faculty of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy in Switzerland (1996-1999);
- Director for Non-Nuclear Arms Control Policy (1993-1996); and
- Deputy Director for Verification Policy and Secretary of Defense Representative to U.S.-Russia Bilateral Consultative Commission (on nuclear testing verification) (1989-1992).
From 1980 until joining OSD in 1986, Mr. Michel served in CIA’s Directorate for Intelligence. During the 1970s, he worked as a legislative aide for foreign and defense affairs for a Member of Congress and as a reporter for French media. He served in the U.S. Navy as a Lieutenant (jg) communications officer during 1969-1972.
Mr. Michel, a career civil servant, was promoted to the Senior Executive Service in 2000. He holds a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies (1975) and a Bachelor’s degree with high honors from Princeton University (1969).
Derek Chollet is the Principal Deputy Director of the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff. Prior to joining the State Department, he was a Senior Fellow at The Center for a New American Security (CNAS), a non-resident fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development Program and an adjunct associate professor at Georgetown University. During the Bill Clinton administration, he served in the State Department in several capacities, including as Chief Speechwriter for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke, and Special Adviser to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. Mr. Chollet also assisted former Secretaries of State James A. Baker III and Warren Christopher with the research and writing of their memoirs, Holbrooke with his book on the Dayton peace process in Bosnia, and Talbott with his book on U.S.-Russian relations during the 1990s. He was foreign policy adviser to Senator John Edwards (D-N.C.), both on his legislative staff and during the 2004 Kerry/Edwards presidential campaign.
Mr. Chollet has been a Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin and a visiting scholar and adjunct professor at The George Washington University. He is the author, co-author or coeditor of five books on American foreign policy, including The Road to the Dayton Accords: A Study of American Statecraft (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and America Between the Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11, coauthored with James Goldgeier (PublicAffairs, 2008). His commentaries and reviews on U.S. foreign policy and politics have appeared in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times, Washington Monthly, and many other books and publications. Educated at Cornell and Columbia, Mr. Chollet was raised in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Maggie Smith joined Atlantic Partnership (AP) in January 2009 as a Project Manager for US Programs. She was responsible for supporting AP by monitoring developments in transatlantic affairs in order to aid in the research and planning of events, new programs, and the future of AP initiatives. Maggie also assisted with the AP website, newsletter, and communications initiatives.
Maggie has a great interest in transatlantic affairs, with a wide range of experiences including work at The European Institute, a public policy forum that aims to strengthen the Atlantic partnership, and the Center for European Policy Analysis, a think tank devoted to studying Central and Eastern Europe in order to foster a vibrant relationship between these territories and the US. Maggie was a joint major in European History and French at Bates College, and is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in German and European Studies from the BMW Center for German and European Studies at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. She has crafted a concentration in the Historical, Political, and Cultural Aspects of Transatlantic Affairs, and is writing a thesis about the implications of economic policy on the transatlantic relationship. Maggie is fluent in French and has a working knowledge of German.
Eric Mittereder joined Atlantic Partnership (AP) in December 2006 as an AP Project Manager responsible for a variety of projects, including bringing new panelists to AP, developing the website, graphically-designing marketing materials, and helping source articles and write synposis for the AP newsletter. Eric spearheaded AP’s redesign project that has included a complete rework of all AP brochures, reports and publicly-distributed items.
Aside from his work with AP, Eric served as the president of the Georgetown University Media Board, which controls funding and provides consulting for all campus media groups. He also was the publisher at the weekly newsmagazine The Georgetown Voice, where he oversaw the business, web, graphic design and photography departments.
Eric also served as The Georgetown Voice design editor, and built an institutional design team and launched a redesign project for the entire paper and website. The project ultimately brought a more interesting presentation and a significantly-increased sense of professionalism to the newsmagazine.
Eric has considerable research experience, independently researching and coordinating the production of The Political Papacy(published 2006), a collection of writings on the political legacy of Pope John Paul II, under the supervision of Georgetown professor Chester Gillis.
Eric graduated in May 2008 from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service with a bachelor’s degree in Culture and Politics and a minor in International Business Diplomacy. He attended the Universität Trier for the 2006 summer semester and the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin from March through July 2007. Eric is currently pursuing a law degree from Georgetown University.
Sophie Meunier is a Research Scholar in Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. She is the author of Trading Voices: The European Union in International Commercial Negotiations (Princeton University Press, August 2005) and its French adaptation, L’Union fait la force: l’Europe dans les negociations commerciales internationales (Presses de Sciences Po, December 2005). She is the co-author of The French Challenge: Adapting to Globalization (with Philip Gordon, Brookings Institution Press, December 2001) and its French adaptation Le Nouveau defi francais: la France face a la mondialisation, winner of the 2002 France-Ameriques book award. She is also the editor of Making History: European Integration and Institutional Change at Fifty (Oxford University Press, with Kathleen McNamara, forthcoming in April 2007).
Dr. Meunier has published many articles on the European Union, the politics of international trade, globalization, and French politics in journals such as International Organization, Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Policy. Her current research focuses on anti-Americanism in France, the complex links between Europeanization and globalization, and the nesting/overlapping of international institutions. She is currently writing a book manuscript on the politics of French anti-Americanism and another book on the paradox of “managed globalization.”
Sophie Meunier is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the European Union Studies Association (2003-2007) and Secretary of this association. She is an elected Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations (2004-2009). She is the chair of the Council of European Studies’ thematic network on globalization and is a member of the Advisory Board of the journal French Politics. Meunier contributes frequently to the French media. BA Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris 1989, Ph.D. MIT 1998.
