Global Issues Speaker Series

Tanvi Madan – Brookings Institution – Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center for Asia Policy Studies

Tanvi Madan is a senior fellow in the Center for Asia Policy Studies in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She is also the host of the Global India podcast. Madan’s work explores India’s role in the world and its foreign policy, focusing in particular on India’s relations with China and the United States. She also researches the U.S. and India’s approaches in the Indo-Pacific, as well as the development of interest-based coalitions, especially the Australia-India-Japan-U.S. Quad.

Aparna Pande – Hudson Institute – Research Fellow – India and South Asia, Defense Strategy/Foreign Policy

Aparna Pande is a research fellow at Hudson Institute. Dr. Pande wrote her PhD dissertation on Pakistan’s foreign policy. Her major field of interest is South Asia with a special focus on India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, foreign policy, and security. Aparna has contributed to the American Interest, the Hindustan Times, the Times of India, the Live Mint, Huffington Post, the Sunday Guardian, The Print, and RealClearWorld.

Sadanand Dhume – American Enterprise Institute – Senior Fellow

Sadanand Dhume writes about South Asian political economy, foreign policy, business, and society, with a focus on India and Pakistan. He is also a South Asia columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He has worked as a foreign correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review in India and Indonesia and was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the Asia Society in Washington, D.C. His political travelogue about the rise of radical Islam in Indonesia, My Friend the Fanatic: Travels with a Radical Islamist, has been published in four countries.

Tara Varma – Brookings Institution – Visiting Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe.

Tara Varma is a visiting fellow in the Center of the United States and Europe at Brookings. Her research focus includes current French security proposals in the European framework, as well as ongoing efforts to materialize European sovereignty in traditional and non-traditional security fields. Varma is also interested in the growing nexus between domestic and foreign policies inside the European Union, and in Indo-Pacific security and the role Europeans could play in it.

Dr. Sameer Lalwani – United States Institute of Peace – Senior Expert – South Asia Programs

Sameer Lalwani is a senior expert on South Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He is also a non-resident senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. From 2015 to 2022, Dr. Lalwani was a senior fellow for Asia strategy and the director of the South Asia program at the Stimson Center. He has also spent time as an adjunct professor at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and as a Stanton nuclear security postdoctoral fellow at the RAND Corporation.

Lisa Curtis – Center for New American Security – Senior Fellow and Director – Indo-Pacific Security Program

Lisa Curtis is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at CNAS. She is a foreign policy and national security expert with over 20 years of service in the U.S. government, including at the National Security Council (NSC), CIA, State Department, and Capitol Hill. Her work has centered on U.S. policy toward the Indo-Pacific and South Asia, with a particular focus on U.S.-India strategic relations; Quad (United States, Australia, India, and Japan) cooperation; counterterrorism strategy in South and Central Asia; and China’s role in the region.

*The evening event is sold separately from the series

ALL EVENTS ARE IN PERSON AT THE DCA

PLEASE NOTE: 

• Event fee includes Zoom link.
• All will receive a Zoom link the day before the event regardless of attendance plans.
• Recording available for a limited time for paid attendees who are unable to attend in person or via Zoom. Please email [email protected] to request a recording.
• Evening event is sold separately from the series.

Grateful thanks to an anonymous donor in underwriting this series.

Every January since 1956, the DCA Global Issues Speaker Series, formerly known as the Academic Lecture Series, has brought topical issues in focus, offering attendees first-hand knowledge of pressing global issues.

In past years topics have been wide ranging and speakers have included government officials, journalists, scholars, and representatives from many research institutions. Past attendees have had the opportunity to hear, in person, the opinions of many experts including: Bonnie Glaser, Fiona Hill, Susan Thornton, Elizabeth Economy, Robin Wright, Evan Osnos, Richard Haass, Steve Coll and Ian Bremmer, just to mention a few.

Each year, the Series features four morning lectures and one evening lecture that focus on a current geo-political “hot spot”. The series features live lectures at the DCA.  Participants may attend in person at the DCA or virtually.  All lectures are followed by a Q&A session with the expert.

Click here for the complete list of Speaker Series topics from 1956 to 2024.

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Speakers Committee Co-Chairs

Mary Genco, Kate Larson

Committee members

Brooke Beck, Susan Bhirud, Erin Conway, Ann Mandel, Joan Meyjes, Judy Slotkin, and Robin Woods