Harold Trinkunas Named Senior Fellow and Director of the Foreign Policy at Brookings Latin America Initiative

Washington, D.C.— Harold A. Trinkunas, a leading expert on Latin American politics and security, has joined the Brookings Institution as senior fellow and director of the Foreign Policy at Brookings Latin America Initiative, Brookings President Strobe Talbott announced today.

“I’m delighted to have Harold lead our efforts on Latin American politics and security,” Talbott said.  “His leadership, alongside our team of experts in the Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development programs, will reinforce Brookings’s continued interest in the rapidly changing dynamics of Latin America.”

Trinkunas comes to Brookings after spending over 10 years at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, recently as associate professor and chair of the department on National Security Affairs. In 1998, he worked as a field representative with the Carter Center’s Venezuelan elections monitoring project. 

“Harold’s extensive research on democratization, civil-military relations and regional security makes him a particularly fitting choice to lead Foreign Policy’s efforts on the shifting political environments in Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean,” said Ted Piccone, acting vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings.

As director, Trinkunas joins a distinguished collection of Brookings experts including: former Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan; Ambassador Andrés Rozental, former deputy foreign minister of Mexico; Vanda Felbab-Brown; Diana Villiers Negroponte; and Richard Feinberg.

Trinkunas received his Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from Stanford, and his B.A. in political science and his B.S. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania.