Lee A. Feinstein

Lee Andrew Feinstein (born 1959) is an American policy-scholar, and former diplomat and senior official at the US Departments of State and Defense. Feinstein held senior positions on leading Democratic presidential campaigns in 2008. He served as the United States Ambassador to Poland from 2009 to 2012, appointed by President Obama and unanimously confirmed by the US Senate. Feinstein is currently the inaugural dean at Indiana University's Lee H. Hamilton and Richard G. Lugar School of Global and International Studies. His nonpartisan scholarship has been recognized by leading Republicans and Democrats. Born to a Jewish family, Feinstein graduated from Georgetown University Law Center, from which he also holds a J.D. He also holds a Master of Arts in political science from the City University of New York, and an A.B. from Vassar College. Feinstein was Assistant Director for Research at the Arms Control Association in Washington from 1989 to 1994 before becoming Special Assistant for Peacekeeping and Peace Enforcement Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense at the Department of Defense. In 1995, Feinstein became a member and later Principal Deputy Director of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State, a role he served in until 2001. Feinstein joined the Carnegie Endowment's Non-Proliferation Project as a visiting scholar in April 2001. From 2002 to 2007, Feinstein served as Deputy Director of Studies and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Director of the Council’s task force program which convened nonpartisan, blue ribbon commissions to issue reports on major foreign policy challenges facing the United States. Feinstein also served as co-director of the CFR-Freedom House Task Force on “Enhancing U.S. Leadership at the United Nations,” co-chaired by Rep. David Dreier and Rep. Lee Hamilton (2003). Feinstein was a presidentially-appointed trustee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and currently serves as Vice-Chair of its Committee on Conscience, which advises the Museum’s Simon Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide.