CSIS Names Mona Yacoubian Senior Adviser and Director of Middle East Program

CSIS Names Mona Yacoubian Senior Adviser and Director of Middle East Program

Photo: CSIS

Press Release - May 12, 2025

WASHINGTON, DC - May 12, 2025 - The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) today announced that Mona Yacoubian has been named senior adviser and director of the Middle East Program. Yacoubian brings to CSIS more than 30 years of experience working on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Her work has focused on conflict analysis, governance and stabilization challenges, and conflict prevention.

"I am thrilled that Mona Yacoubian is joining our Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department to further the Middle East Program's innovative research and analysis on conflict and governance in the region," said Dr. Victor Cha, president of the Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department and Korea Chair at CSIS. "Mona is one of our nation's top scholars in this field, and her creative strategic thinking and deep expertise will be critical to our efforts to understand the region's complexities and to identify policy solutions."

Dr. Jon Alterman, who built the CSIS Middle East Program into a leading platform for regional analysis for over two decades, will work with CSIS leadership on issues of grand strategy, history, and geopolitics as the Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair.

As senior adviser and the Middle East Program's director, Yacoubian will focus on topics such as U.S. policy in the MENA region, the region's emerging order as it enters into a multipolar era, and regional approaches to de-escalation, mediation, and stabilization in fragile contexts.

Yacoubian most recently served as vice president of the Middle East and North Africa center at the U.S. Institute of Peace. In this role, she managed and directed field programming in Tunisia, Libya, and Iraq and oversaw MENA-focused staff in Washington, D.C. In 2019, she was executive director of the congressionally appointed Syria Study Group. From 2014 to 2017, she served as deputy assistant administrator in the Middle East Bureau at USAID, with responsibility for $1 billion of programming across Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon. Prior to joining USAID, she was senior adviser at the Stimson Center, where her work focused on the Arab uprisings. From 1990 to 1998, Yacoubian served as the North Africa analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

Yacoubian was a Fulbright scholar in Syria, where she studied Arabic at the University of Damascus. She has held an international affairs fellowship with the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and is currently a CFR member. She holds a master's in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor's in public policy from Duke University.

CSIS president and CEO Dr. John Hamre said, "We are delighted that Mona will lead the Middle East Program. She is an extremely thoughtful strategic analyst with deep government experience, which is critical to producing policy insights to tackle the many challenges the region faces today."

Yacoubian said, "I am honored to lead the Middle East program at CSIS, building on Jon Alterman's stellar work, at a time of great flux in the region-marked equally by significant challenges and opportunities."

Visit here to learn more about the CSIS Middle East Program. Explore the latest work from CSIS's Geopolitics and Foreign Policy Department by visiting here.

For media inquiries, contact Andrew Schwartz (aschwartz@csis.org) and Ava Rose (arose@csis.org).