Speaker Biographies

Mark Falcoff is a resident scholar at AEI. He has taught at the universities of Illinois, Oregon, and California (Los Angeles), as well as at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. He has also been a fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations.  During the 99th Congress, he served on the staff of the Senate committee on Foreign Relations. His recent books include Panama’s Canal: What Happens When the United States Gives a Small Country What It Wants and A Culture of Its Own: Taking Latin America Seriously. The AEI Press has just published his new book, Cuba the Morning After: Confronting Castro’s Legacy. He is the author of a monthly AEI newsletter, Latin American Outlook.

Daniel W. Fisk is deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. Appointed to the Senior Executive Service in April 2002, Mr. Fisk is responsible for the broad range of U.S. policy toward the countries of Central America and Cuba and for coordinating the Bureau’s Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs activities throughout the hemisphere. Before his appointment to the State Department, Mr. Fisk was the deputy director of the Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., where he was responsible for managing the institute’s activities, programs, and publications (1999–2002). His experience in the U.S. government includes service as a senior staff member and associate counsel for the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (1994–97) and as a staff member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs (1993–94). Mr. Fisk also served in the Department of Defense in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, where he was acting director for Inter-American Affairs and deputy director for International Counternarcotics Matters (1990–93).  For his work in defense, he was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.