Ryan C. Berg

Ryan C. Berg is director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He also serves as an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America and a course coordinator at the United States Foreign Service Institute.

Dr. Berg obtained a PhD and an MPhil in political science and an MSc in global governance and diplomacy from the University of Oxford, where he was a Senior Hulme Fellow. Earlier, he obtained a BA in government and theology from Georgetown University.

His research focuses on U.S.-Latin America relations, strategic competition and defense policy, authoritarian regimes, armed conflict and transnational organized crime, and trade and development issues. Dr. Berg has been published in a variety of peer-reviewed academic and policy-oriented journals, including The Lancet, Migration and Development, the SAIS Review of International Affairs, and the Georgetown Security Studies Review. His articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, CNN.com, Los Angeles Times, and World Politics Review, among other outlets.

Dr. Berg routinely testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and is conversational in Slovenian.

As a Fulbright scholar in Brazil and Council on Foreign Relations Term Member, Dr. Berg has established expertise across the Western Hemisphere. His recent work examines China's growing influence in Latin America, U.S. policy toward Venezuela, democratic backsliding, and economic development challenges throughout the region.