Daniel Nadel

Daniel Nadel has served as Director of the Office of International Religious Freedom since August 2015, where he is responsible for promoting freedom of religion and belief for all as a core objective of U.S. foreign policy. Dan leads the office’s efforts to monitor religiously motivated abuses, persecution, and discrimination worldwide, and to recommend and implement policies and programs to address these concerns. He joined the office in 2011 as Unit Chief for South and Central Asia, and served as Acting Deputy for several years before assuming his current role. Dan joined the State Department in 2006 as a Presidential Management Fellow, and served from 2006 to 2011 in the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor’s Office of European Affairs, where he promoted human rights and democratic governance in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and elevated the plight of Europe’s Roma minority. Dan worked previously as a political officer and refugee coordinator at the U.S. Embassy in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; as an attorney-advisor with the U.S. military in Europe; and as a federal prosecutor in Washington, DC. Before joining the U.S. government, Dan served at organizations including the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights, the Kosovo Law Center, and the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He has published on topics including the Rwanda genocide, political rights of persons with disabilities, Slobodan Milosevic, and the political crisis in Zimbabwe. Dan received a B.A. and M.A. in International Affairs and a Juris Doctor from George Washington University. He was born and raised in Queens, New York.