Jon B. Alterman is a scholar of global security and geostrategy. He is currently Senior Vice President and Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).Prior to joining CSIS, Alterman served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State and as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. He also previously served as an expert adviser to the Iraq Study Group.In addition to his policy work, Alterman teaches Middle Eastern studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and George Washington University. He has also been a scholar at the U.S. Institute of Peace and at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Prior to that, he was a teacher at Harvard University.Alterman received his A.B. from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University.