Speaker's Biography
Mr. Casimir A. Yost returned to Georgetown University in 2013, after four years of government service. He is a senior fellow in the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and teaches in the Walsh School of Foreign Service. His other research interests include: U.S. foreign and national security policies with particular emphasis on the Middle East and East Asia, and energy futures. Prior to his government service Mr. Yost worked in academic, non-profit, government, and corporate positions.
From 1994 to 2009, Mr. Yost was at Georgetown University, first as Director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and Marshall B. Coyne Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy and then, for the 2008-2009 academic year, as chair of the International Relations and Security Concentration of the Master of Science in Foreign Service Program.
From 1986 to 1994 Mr. Yost lived in Northern California where he served for four years as President of the World Affairs Council of Northern California and for an additional four years as Executive Director of the Asia Foundation’s Center for Asian Pacific Affairs.
From 1977 to 1986 Mr. Yost held staff positions in the United States Senate first as Foreign Policy Advisor to Senator Charles McC.Mathias, Jr. (R-MD) and then, from 1982 to 1986, as Staff Director for the Subcommittee on International Economic Policy of the Committee on Foreign Relations. From 1972 to 1977, Mr. Yost worked for First National City Bank (Citibank) in Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia.
Mr. Yost has written extensively on U.S. foreign and security policies. He is a graduate of Hamilton College and has a Master of Science in Foreign Service degree from Georgetown University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and on the Advisory Council of the American Ditchley Foundation and the Advisory Council of the Eurasia Foundation.
Dr. Jonah Blank is adjunct lecturer with the South Asia Studies program and a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. An anthropologist by training, he is author of the books “Mullahs on the Mainframe: Islam & Modernity Among the Daudi Bohras”, and “Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God: Retracing the Ramayana through India.”
From 1999-2011, Dr. Blank served as Policy Director for South and Southeast Asia on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Before entering government service, he served as senior editor and foreign correspondent for US News & World Report, where he reported from Indonesia, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
Dr. Blank began his career in Japan, as finance editor of Tokyo's Asahi Evening News. He has been a reporter for Fortune magazine, and written for publications ranging from Foreign Affairs to The New Yorker to The Washington Post.
Dr. Blank received his MA and PhD from Harvard University.