Dr. Grace Wermenbol has served in a variety of national security roles. Dr. Wermenbol currently is a Middle East Specialist at the Department of State, where she serves as a subject matter expert and advisor on regional matters and supports U.S. foreign policy initiatives and decision-making. Dr. Wermenbol was previously a Middle East Director at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, where she served both on the National Intelligence Management Council and the National Intelligence Council, routinely engaging with the National Security Council, Combatant Command, interagency, and IC leadership and foreign counterparts. As Director for Near East Strategic Planning, Dr. Wermenbol provided strategic direction for Middle East programming across the U.S. intelligence community and led the identification, development, and implementation of programming in line with White House priorities. Dr. Wermenbol joined ODNI from the IC, where she was responsible for providing strategic recommendations for investments in counterterrorism (CT) programs focused on the Levant. Dr. Wermenbol is the recipient of numerous Exceptional Service Awards.
Dr. Wermenbol is an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service where she teaches seminar classes on Israeli-Palestinian affairs and the Middle East’s political and economic engagement with key geopolitical entities and regions, including Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia. Dr. Wermenbol previously lectured on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the University of Oxford and was a research associate at Oxford’s Department of Politics and International Relations. Dr. Wermenbol also serves as a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program, providing expert commentary pertaining to the geopolitics of the Middle East region with a particular focus on the Levant and Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Dr. Wermenbol was previously a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute’s Program on Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs. The Middle East Policy Council listed her in their 40 Under 40 awards for influential Middle East experts in 2023.
Dr. Wermenbol is the author of A Tale of Two Narratives (Cambridge University Press, 2021), a study of Israeli and Palestinian societies in the post-Oslo era, and a contributor to the International Institute for Strategic Studies' 2020 and 2021 Armed Conflict Surveys (Routledge). Dr. Wermenbol has published with leading international think tanks, including the Atlantic Council and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has briefed intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations in personal capacity. Her commentary has appeared in The Washington Post, Voice of America, France 24, BBC, Haaretz, The Jerusalem Post, The Cairo Review of Global Affairs, among other prominent media and research outlets. She holds a master's and DPhil from the University of Oxford, St Antony's College.