Xenia Dormandy

Xenia Dormandy is the Programme Director of the US Project and the Acting Dean of the Academy for Leadership in International Affairs at Chatham House. Prior to this she was the Executive Director of the PeaceNexus Foundation, based just outside Geneva, which she launched in 2009. From 2005 to 2009, Xenia was at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center where she was the Director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent and the Executive Director for Research at the Belfer Center, as well as being a member of the Center’s board.

From early 2004 to August 2005, Xenia served as Director for South Asia at the USG's National Security Council (NSC). Prior to her NSC post, Xenia served as a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Bureau of South Asia at the Department of State. Her major portfolios included counterterrorism, nonproliferation, Kashmir, and other law enforcement topics. During her tenure at the Department of State, Xenia was also a Special Advisor at the Homeland Security Group, and an officer in the Bureau of Nonproliferation. Shortly after September 11, 2001, she was detailed from the Department of State to the Office of the Vice President (OVP) to help launch the Office of Homeland Security Affairs.

Xenia is the author of numerous articles and opeds in publications such as The Washington Quarterly, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor and International Herald Tribune, and she has been interviewed on radio and television for such programs as the BBC World TV, NPR, CSPAN, CNN, Fox News, Al Jazeera and the Jim Lehrer News Hour.

Prior to her government service, Xenia worked in the nonprofit and private sectors in California, Israel and the West Bank, and the U.K., and for UNICEF in New York. She is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government where she completed her Masters in Public Policy. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Oxford University.