Dehgan, Alexander

Biography

Dr. Alex Dehgan
Senior Policy Advisor

Alex Dehgan presently serves as a Senior Policy Advisor to Dr. Nina Fedoroff, the Science Adviser to the Secretary of State and to the Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he is working on science diplomacy issues with the Islamic world and the integration of science within our foreign assistance policies.

Dr. Alex Dehgan most recently served as the Afghanistan Country Director for the Wildlife Conservation Society’s program in Afghanistan. He also served as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, and held the North Africa and Levant portfolio, which included the Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria, and Lebanon. Dr. Dehgan also served as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Diplomacy Fellow in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA) at the State Department. In this role, Dr. Dehgan worked to support scientific, environmental, and legal aspects of U.S. policy in the Near East. During the fellowship, Dr. Dehgan was the Special Advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority for Nonproliferation, where he worked to rebuild science in that country (see “AAAS Diplomacy Fellow Alex Dehgan in Iraq: Caught in the Crossfire”, AAAS News Release (16 August 2005)).

As a result of his work in Iraq, Alex received rare joint recognition from the Department of State and the Department of Defense. The State Department awarded him with a Superior Honor Award, the State Department’s third highest award, and the Department of Defense awarded him a Letter of Commendation (“AAAS Diplomacy Fellow Alex Dehgan Wins State Department Honor”, AAAS News Release (16 August 2005)). He has received considerable media recognition for his work in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Madagascar, the latter featured on the National Geographic Channel television series, Science Times. Alex was chosen as an icon of science for 2005 by Seed Magazine.

Prior to his arrival at the Department of State, Alex directed the Ranomafana Fragments Project in Madagascar as part of his doctoral research at the University of Chicago, spending 3 years working in remote camps in the southeastern rainforests of Madagascar. His theoretical expertise lies in behavioral ecology, population biology, biogeography, extinction studies, coupled with technical expertise in geographic information systems analysis and remote sensing. Alex Dehgan received a William Rainey Harper Fellowship for the Biological Sciences Division at the University of Chicago where he received his Ph.D and M.S. He also attained other honors, including a Searle Fellowship, a highly competitive University-wide fellowship awarded to graduate students whose research interests have the possibility of contributing to the quality of contemporary American life, and a National Science Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship and a NSF Doctoral Enhancement Award, among 24 awards and grants he was awarded during the tenure of his research. Alex also served as a Fulbright Scholar to Madagascar. Alex also holds a law degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law and is a member of the California Bar and the Bar of the U.S. Court of International Trade. Alex clerked for the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade and had the opportunity to work on cases that concerned trade and the environment. He has previously advised the Russian Federation on environmental law and policy in the early 1990’s immediately after the fall of the Soviet Union. Alex has now worked and traveled in almost 70 countries on 5 continents.