Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Suzanne DiMaggio is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she focuses on U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East and Asia. She is one of the foremost experts and practitioners of diplomatic dialogues with countries that have limited or no official relations with the United States, especially Iran and North Korea. For over two decades, she has led track 1.5 and track 2 conversations to help policymakers identify pathways for diplomatic progress on a range of issues, including regional security, nonproliferation, conflict prevention/management, and bilateral relations, among others.
Her research and work draw on an approach to unofficial engagement she has been developing since the late 1990s, which began with a focus on U.S. relations with China, Russia, and Japan, and later expanded to Iran, Myanmar/Burma, and North Korea. She directs a long-running U.S.-Iran dialogue that is often cited as a model for how to conduct informal diplomacy effectively and creatively.
Before joining Carnegie, Ms. DiMaggio was a senior fellow at New America (2014-2018), where she directed several high-level policy dialogues, including with Iran, North Korea, and China. She was the vice president of global policy programs at the Asia Society (2007-2014), where she set the strategic direction for moving the Society’s work in the policy arena from a public program-focused forum to a global think tank aimed at addressing the most critical challenges facing the United States and Asia. She was the vice president of policy programs at the United Nations Association of the USA (1998-2007), where she directed programs that advanced multilateral approaches to global problem solving and advocated in support of constructive U.S. international engagement. Before joining UNA-USA, she was a program officer at the United Nations University (1993-1998), a research institute that links the UN system with international academic and policy communities. First based in Tokyo, Japan, and later at UN headquarters in New York, her work at UNU focused on international security issues and development.
Ms. DiMaggio is an associate senior fellow in the Disarmament, Arms Control and Nonproliferation Program at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). She also is a co-founder of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft (where she served as the inaugural Board Chair), the director of the Iran Project, an advisor to the Vienna-based Open Nuclear Network, and a member of Foreign Policy for America’s advisory board. She holds a BA from New York University and an MA from City College of New York (CUNY). She is a frequent commentator in the news media and her op-eds have appeared in national and international press outlets. She resides in NYC’s Greenwich Village with her husband, jazz bassist and composer Ben Allison, and daughter.
