PERSON: Jamie Metzl

Atlantic Council

Senior Fellow

Jamie Metzl is a Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, novelist, blogger, syndicated columnist, media commentator, and expert in Asian affairs and biotechnology policy. He previously served as Executive Vice President of the Asia Society, Deputy Staff Director of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senior Coordinator for International Public Information at the U.S. State Department, Director for Multilateral Affairs on the National Security Council, and as a Human Rights Officer for the United Nations in Cambodia. He is a former Partner and current Advisory Board member of a New York-based global investment firm, serves on the Advisory Council to Walmart’s Future of Retail Policy Lab, was Chief Strategy Officer for a biotechnology company, and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri’s Fifth Congressional District in Kansas City in 2004. He has served as an election monitor in Afghanistan and the Philippines, advised the government of North Korea on the establishment of Special Economic Zones, and is the Honorary Ambassador to North America of the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy.<br> Jamie appears regularly on national and international media discussing Asian economic and political issues and his syndicated columns and other writing on Asian affairs, genetics, virtual reality, and other topics is featured regularly in publications around the world. He has testified before Congress outlining emergency preparedness recommendations after 9-11 and on the national security implication of the biotechnology and genomics revolutions. Jamie is the author of a history of the Cambodian genocide and the novels The Depths of the Sea and Genesis Code, which deals with issues of human genetic enhancement in the context of a future US-China rivalry. His new novel, Eternal Sonata, exploring issues related to extreme human life extension, was published by Arcade in October 2016.<br> <br> A founder and Co-Chair of the national security organization Partnership for a Secure America, Jamie is a board member of the International Center for Transitional Justice and the American University in Mongolia, a member of the Advisory Board of the Brandeis International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life and 92Y’s Center for Innovation and Social Impact, and a former board member of Park University and of the Jewish refugee agency HIAS. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former White House Fellow and Aspen Institute Crown Fellow, Jamie holds a Ph.D. in Asian history from Oxford, a JD from Harvard Law School, and is a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University. He has completed thirteen Ironman triathlons, twenty-nine marathons, and twelve ultramarathons.<br> <br> Jamie speaks frequently to corporate, nonprofit, and academic audiences and is represented by the Harry Walker Agency.<br> <br> — aspenbrainlab.com