Mara Rudman runs the Vital Center Network, a project to create and sustain a sensible voice and community advancing US economic and national security interests across America and around the world. She is also a Practitioner Senior Fellow at the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, where she previously led the Ripples of Hope project. Rudman’s positions have included serving on the 2022-24 National Defense Strategy Commission, as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs in the Obama and Clinton administrations; deputy envoy for the Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace at the U.S. Department of State; assistant administrator for the Middle East at the U.S. Agency for International Development; and chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Previously, Rudman was executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress and senior vice president for policy/projects at Business Executives for National Security. She also serves on the boards of Howard University College of Arts and Sciences and the Inclusive Abundance Initiative and as a Distinguished Diplomatic Fellow at the Middle East Institute. Rudman frequently appears on TV, podcasts, and radio, and has written for and been quoted in various print publications. She received her BA from Dartmouth College and a law degree from Harvard Law School.