November 2, 2017

How to Fix Our Ailing State Department

Joseph Cassidy
Global Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars

Joseph Cassidy is a Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, exploring potential reforms to the international humanitarian system, including U.S. refugee resettlement. He was previously a State Department diplomat, and served in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and South America. He also worked at the National Security Council and with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

In autumn 2017, Cassidy is serving as Distinguished Visiting Fellow with the Center for International Business and Human Rights at the University of Oklahoma College of Law and is teaching at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.

Cassidy has published articles on refugee and humanitarian issues, State Department reform, the NSC system, the Middle East, and bureaucratic loyalty, in Foreign Policy, The National Interest, Just Security, Newsweek, The Hill, Real Clear World, Refugees Deeply, Forced Migration Forum, the Italian Journal of Geo-Politics Limes, and The Wilson Center’s New Security Beat blog.

Cassidy holds a master’s degree in public policy from Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of International Affairs and a bachelor’s degree in history from Wesleyan University. He is author of the book, “Place Names of Namibia:  A Historical Dictionary,” published by Macmillan in 2009. He is married to human rights lawyer Elizabeth Kandravy Cassidy.