Heather A. Conley is a former U.S. diplomat who served in the State Department’s Bureau for European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for U.S. bilateral relations with the 15 countries of northern and central Europe, and earlier, in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.

She is currently senior fellow and director of the Europe Program at the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), one of Washington’s major nonpartisan think tanks. Prior to joining CSIS, Ms. Conley was a senior adviser to the Center for European Policy Analysis. From 2005 to 2008, she was the executive director of the Office of the Chairman of the Board at the American National Red Cross. From 2001 to 2005, she served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau for European and Eurasian Affairs. From 1994 to 2001, she was a senior associate with an international consulting firm led by former U.S. deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.

Ms. Conley began her career in the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the U.S. Department of State where she served as the State Department liaison for the U.S. Department of Defense’s Global Humanitarian Assistance Program. Following that assignment, she was selected as special assistant to the coordinator of U.S. assistance to the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union.

Ms. Conley received her B.A. in international studies from West Virginia Wesleyan College and her M.A. in international relations from the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).