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This event is hybrid. To register for the in-person portion, click here. To register for the virtual session, click here.
Speakers: Ricardo Zúniga, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs; Nick Zimmerman, Senior Advisor at WestExec Advisors and former Director for Brazil and Southern Cone Affairs at the White House National Security Council; Hussein Kalout, former Special Secretary for Strategic Affairs of Brazil
Moderated by: Erika Manouselis, Manager, Future of Diplomacy Project
Please join the Future of Diplomacy Project for a discussion on the trajectory of bilateral relations between the United States and Brazil, two of the world's biggest democracies, in the face of recent consequential midterm and presidential elections with Ricardo Zúniga, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere at the U.S. Department of State; Hussein Kalout, former Special Secretary for Strategic Affairs of Brazil; and Nick Zimmerman, Senior Advisor at WestExec Advisors and former Director for Brazil and Southern Cone Affairs at the White House National Security Council. This panel will explore how both countries can best work together in areas such as climate change and global democratic backsliding, particularly in light of significant and ongoing challenges to the integrity of each country's democratic institutions and the rise of great power competition in the current geo-political environment. Erika Manouselis, Manager of the Future of Diplomacy Project, will serve as moderator.
In person attendance is limited to Harvard ID holders; Zoom attendance is open to the public.
Ricardo Zúniga is the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary and Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs. A career member of the Senior Foreign Service, he previously served as a Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center Latin America Program, Director of the International Student Management Office at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, and as U.S. Consul General in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Mr. Zúniga was a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council from 2012 to 2015. He worked overseas in Mexico, Portugal, Cuba, and Spain. Domestically, Mr. Zúniga served in the State Department’s Office of Cuban Affairs, the U.S. Mission to the Organization of American States, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and as the Desk Officer for Uganda and Tanzania. He was born in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and has a B.A. in Foreign Affairs and Latin American Studies from the University of Virginia.
Nick Zimmerman is a Senior Advisor to the Latin American Program’s Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Nick previously served in the Obama Administration in a variety of national security capacities as the Senior Policy Advisor to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, White House National Security Council Director for Brazil and Southern Cone Affairs, and Special Assistant in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Western Hemisphere Affairs Country Director. Nick has been cited, interviewed, and published in an array of media outlets in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, including CNN Brasil, El Faro, the Financial Times, Folha de São Paulo, GloboNews, the Miami Herald, New York Magazine, and Valor Econômico. He holds a B.A. with honors from Brown University and an M.A. from the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Hussein Kalout is a member of the International Advisory Board at the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI). Editor-in-chief at CEBRI-Journal. He is a Political Scientist, Professor of International Relations, Special Advisor to the Harvard’s International Council and Research Scholar at Harvard University. Between 2017 and 2018, he was Special Secretary for Strategic Affairs of Brazil, member of the Council of Ministers of the Chamber of Foreign Trade (CAMEX), and was President of the Brazilian National Commission on Population and Development. In public administration, he assumed responsibilities such as Director of International Affairs of the Superior Court of Justice and Director of International Legal Cooperation of the Attorney General's Office. Mr. Kalout has authored numerous op-eds, book chapters, articles and papers in scientific journals including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, Harvard International Review, Global Discourse (Routledge), Política Externa and Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional. Mr. Kalout was columnist on International Politics in the Brazilian influential newspapers the Estado de S. Paulo (ESTADÃO) and also at Folha de S. Paulo. Finally, Mr. Kalout has been decorated by several institutions overseas and in Brazil namely the Order of Rio Branco, the Order of Naval Merit, the Order of Military Merit, the Order of Aeronautical Merit, Barão de Tamandaré Medal of Honor, and the Brazilian Army Medal of Honor.
Erika Manouselis is the Research and Administrative Manager for the Belfer Center’s flagship research projects on diplomacy and international affairs: the Future of Diplomacy Project and the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship. In this role, she manages day to day operations, strategic communications, and contributes to research. In addition, she has spearheaded the Belfer Center-wide strategy for diversity, inclusion and belonging initiatives since June 2020, and for that, she was awarded the Peggy Scannell Award for Excellence by her colleagues. Previously, she worked as an advisor and speechwriter at the Permanent Mission of Brazil to the United Nations from 2016-2017 where she helped Brazil with negotiations for the UN’s budgetary and administrative committee. Given her experience in academia and at the UN, she was invited to participate in the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs' (DESA) “Workshop on Multilateralism in an Evolving World, Rebuilding Trust and Moving Forward” initiative, an intergenerational multi stakeholder dialogue between youth, the UN, and member states. Additionally, Erika has been involved in multiple research projects on Brazil. She was a research assistant for the Opening the Archives Project, a digitization effort aimed at documenting U.S.-Brazil Relations from 1960s-80s, and for The Brazil Reader: History, Culture, Politics. She also served as a translator for a study on the implementation of Brazil’s National Common Core Curricular Base run by Columbia University's Consortium for Policy Research in Education. She is interested in the intersection of history and foreign policy, and authored a Belfer Center report on “The Modern Roots of the Graveyard for Diplomats: The Tripartite Conference on Cyprus in 1955.” Erika holds a B.A. in Classics and political science with honors from Brown University, an MPhil in Political Thought and Intellectual History from the University of Cambridge, and a certificate in Marketing Management from the Harvard Extension School. She is a citizen of the U.S., Brazil, and the EU (Greece).
Organized by The Future of Diplomacy Project at the HKS Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs