Leaders in Foreign Service Keynote Speaker Series: Esther Brimmer

Thursday, Mar 26 from 5 pm to 6:15 pm

Alumni Center, 716 Columbus Ave, Boston, MA 02120

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• Seating is first come, first served.

The Center for International Affairs and World Cultures will host special guest Esther Brimmer in its Leaders in Foreign Service Keynote Speaker Series in a talk titled, Dominating the Domains: Great Power Competition in Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction. The discussion will be led by Esther D. Brimmer, Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs and James H. Binger senior fellow in global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), with Mai’a Cross from Northeastern University moderating the conversation. The conversation will address intensifying great power competition in the global domains.

Featured Speaker:

Esther D. Brimmer is the Former Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs and is the James H. Binger senior fellow in global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She is writing a book on the need for better governance mechanisms to manage expanding human activities in outer space. Most recently, she served as project director for CFR’s new task force report Securing Space: A Plan for U.S. Action.Previously she served as project director for a different CFR task force report titled Arctic Imperatives: Reinforcing U.S. Strategy on America’s Fourth Coast. Her career spans service in government as a senior official, as a CEO, and as a faculty member at leading universities. She led U.S. policy in international organizations as the assistant secretary of state for International Organization Affairs. Earlier she served on the State Department’s policy planning staff. Brimmer was executive director and CEO of NAFSA: Association of International Educators. She was the J. B. and Maurice C. Shapiro professor at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She was the first deputy director and director of research at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University’s Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Brimmer has served in the private sector as a senior advisor at McLarty Associates, and earlier as an associate at McKinsey & Company. Early in her career, she was a senior associate at the Carnegie commission on preventing deadly conflict. Brimmer received her bachelor’s degree from Pomona College and master’s degree and doctorate from Oxford University. 

Moderator:

Mai’a Cross is the Dean’s Professor of Political Science, International Affairs, and Diplomacy and Director of the Center for International Affairs & World Cultures at Northeastern University. She is also a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Professor Cross’s work investigates the long-term driving forces behind breakthroughs in international cooperation at both the elite and societal levels.  She has specific expertise in space diplomacy, public diplomacy, European Union and transatlantic relations, security cooperation, and soft power (CV). Her current research, supported by a major grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York, is Transnational Political Networks and the Future of Global Order, which will result in around 20 new case studies, including the global network catalyzed by the Polynesian Voyaging Society (Hokule’a). She holds a PhD in Politics from Princeton University, and a bachelor’s degree in Government from Harvard University.