Liberal Arts alumnus Sean Misko (2004, International Politics and Media Studies) will be speaking to students and answering questions about foreign policy, global leadership, and his experience at the State Department. This event will take place on Friday, April 25 in 124 Sparks Building at 12:15pm. No RSVP is required and students are welcome to bring lunch with them. Beverages will be provided.

Sean Misko is a member of the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Staff.  In addition to leading the State Department’s work on the Obama Administration’s second-term National Security Strategy, he advises the Secretary of State on U.S. policy toward South Asia and the Middle East.  From 2009-2012, Misko served as Special Advisor to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP) and coordinated negotiation of the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement, which provides a framework for U.S.-Afghan relations following the withdrawal of combat forces.  Misko was also involved in efforts to facilitate a political settlement of the Afghanistan conflict.

Prior to joining Ambassador Richard Holbrooke’s SRAP team, Misko worked as a policy advisor to U.S. Central Command.  He also served as a special assistant in the Office of Management and Budget’s National Security Division, Presidential Management Fellow in the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs, and briefly as a Roberts Intelligence Fellow and political analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.

Misko also holds a Master of Public Policy in International Security and Political Economy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.  He has been recognized by the Center for a New American Security as a 2014 Next Generation National Security Leader, the German Marshall Fund as a 2013 Young Strategist, and was a 2011 Manfred Wörner Fellow.  In 2012, the Penn State Alumni Association recognized Misko with its Alumni Achievement Award.