Speaker biographies
Joseph Antos is the Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care and Retirement Policy at AEI and an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health. He is also a commissioner on the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission. Prior to coming to AEI, Mr. Antos served as assistant director for health and human resources at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the division within the CBO that provides Congress with analyses of proposed changes to federal programs and policies in areas such as health, income security, education, employment, and housing. Mr. Antos was the director of the Office of Research and Demonstrations and deputy director of the Office of the Actuary at the Health Care Financing Administration. He served as deputy chief of staff and the principal deputy assistant secretary for management and budget at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Leon Aron is a resident scholar and director of Russian studies at AEI. He is the author of the first full-scale scholarly biography of Boris Yeltsin, Yeltsin: A Revolutionary Life (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). Since 1998, he has written AEI’s Russian Outlook, a quarterly essay on economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of Russia’s post-Soviet transition. He has contributed numerous essays and articles to newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Times (London), Newsday, The National Interest, Post-Soviet Affairs, and the Times Literary Supplement. A frequent guest on television and radio talk shows, he has commented on Russian affairs on 60 Minutes, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Charlie Rose, CNN International, C-SPAN, and National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Talk of the Nation.
Claude E. Barfield is a resident scholar and the director of trade, science, and technology policy studies at AEI. He is the author or editor of a number of books on trade and science policy, including Free Trade, Sovereignty, Democracy: The Future of the World Trade Organization (AEI Press, 2001). In 1999, he coauthored Tiger by the Tail: China and the World Trade Organization (AEI Press) with Mark Groombridge. Before coming to AEI, he served in the Ford administration, on the staff of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, and as a co-staff director of the President’s Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties.
Dan Blumenthal joined AEI in November 2004 as a resident fellow in Asian studies. Previously, he was senior director for China, Taiwan, and Mongolia in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for international security affairs during the first George W. Bush administration. In that capacity, he led a team that formulated and implemented defense policies and programs toward, and for, these portfolio countries. Before his service at the Department of Defense, Mr. Blumenthal practiced law in New York and was a research assistant at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Kenneth P. Green is a visiting scholar at AEI, where he studies public policy pertaining to energy and the environment. An environmental scientist by training, he has authored numerous policy studies, newspaper and magazine articles, several encyclopedia and book chapters, and a textbook for middle-school students entitled Global Warming: Understanding the Debate (Enslow Publishers, 2002). Prior to coming to AEI, Mr. Green studied U.S. policy issues for eight years with California’s Reason Foundation, and studied Canadian policy issues for nearly three years at Canada’s Fraser Institute.
Kevin A. Hassett is the director of economic policy studies and a resident scholar at AEI. He is also a weekly columnist for Bloomberg. Before joining AEI, Mr. Hassett was a senior economist at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and an associate professor of economics and finance at the Graduate School of Business of Columbia University. He was an economic adviser to the George W. Bush campaign in the 2004 presidential election, and was the chief economic adviser to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) during the 2000 primaries. He has also served as a policy consultant to the U.S. Department of the Treasury during both the former Bush and Clinton administrations. Mr. Hassett is a member of the Joint Committee on Taxation’s Dynamic Scoring Advisory Panel. He is the author, coauthor or editor of six books on economics and economic policy, including the AEI book on tax reform, Toward Fundamental Tax Reform. He has published scholarly articles in the American Economic Review, the Economic Journal, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Public Economics, and many other professional journals. His popular writings have been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, the Washington Post, and numerous other outlets. His economic commentaries are regularly aired on radio and television, including recent appearances on the Today Show, CBS’s Morning Show, Newshour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball, Moneyline, and Power Lunch.
Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and executive editor of Education Next. His many books include No Child Left Behind: A Primer (Peter Lang 2006), Educational Entrepreneurship (Harvard Education Press 2006), Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave Macmillan 2004), and Revolution at the Margins (Brookings 2002). His work has appeared in scholarly and more popular publications including Social Science Quarterly, American Politics Quarterly, Teachers College Record, Journal of Teacher Education, Educational Policy, Urban Affairs Review, Phi Delta Kappa, Education Week, the Boston Globe, National Review, and the Washington Post. He serves on the review board for the Broad Prize in Urban Education, the research advisory board for the National Center for Educational Accountability, and as a research associate with the Harvard University Program on Education Policy and Governance. He is a former high school social studies teacher and professor of education and government at the University of Virginia.
Frederick W. Kagan is a resident scholar in defense and security policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. His most recent book, Finding the Target: The Transformation of American Military Policy (Encounter Books), was published in September 2006. Previously an associate professor of military history at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he is the author of The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801–1805 (Da Capo, 2006) and coauthor of While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today (St. Martin’s Press, 2000). A contributing editor at The Weekly Standard, he has also written numerous articles on defense and foreign policy issues for Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Policy Review, Commentary, Parameters, and other periodicals.
Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East (including Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, a project on democracy for the Arab world, a roundtable of experts to discuss global energy security, and a project to develop bilateral relations between India and the United States. She recently served as a member of the congressionally mandated Task Force on the United Nations, established by the United States Institute of Peace. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Ms. Pletka has also been a journalist based in Washington, D.C. and the Middle East.
Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at AEI and editor of the Middle East Quarterly. Between 2002 and 2004, Mr. Rubin worked as a staff advisor for Iran and Iraq in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, where he seconded to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. He previously lectured in history at Yale University, Hebrew University, and three different universities in northern Iraq. Mr. Rubin is the co-author (with Patrick Clawson) of Eternal Iran: Continuity and Chaos (Palgrave, 2005), and the author of Into the Shadows: Radical Vigilantes in Khatami's Iran (The Washington Institute, 2001).
Gary J. Schmitt is a resident scholar at AEI and director of the Institute’s Program on Advanced Strategic Studies. Prior to coming to AEI, he helped found and served as executive director of the Project for the New American Century, a Washington-based foreign and defense policy think tank. While in government, Dr. Schmitt served on the professional staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1981-1984, serving as Minority Staff Director from 1982-84. From 1984-88, he worked in the Executive Office of the President, serving as executive director of President Reagan’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. He has since held visiting fellowships at The National Interest and the Brookings Institution, served as coordinator for the Consortium for the Study of Intelligence’s Working Group on Intelligence Reform, and worked as a consultant to the Department of Defense. In addition, he has been an adjunct professor at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.
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