People
James Alexander
Strategic Religious Engagement Hub Advisory Board Member
Profile
This individual is not a direct affiliate of the Berkley Center. They previously worked with one or more of our core projects or programs. Please contact the individual at their home institution.
James Alexander recently left the U.S. Department of State after over 20 years of service and was a 2025-2026 member of the Strategic Religious Engagement Hub Advisory Board, an initiative hosted by the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. As a senior policy adviser for the Strategic Religious Engagement Unit in the Office of International Religious Freedom, he focused on realizing the intersection between diplomacy and the activities of faith-based actors. He carried an international outreach and education/training portfolio. His responsibilities included serving as U.S. government representative and co-chair of the Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion & Diplomacy (TPNRD), an intergovernmental forum focused on religion’s role in foreign affairs. He continues this work. James previously oversaw a team monitoring international exchange programs, has evaluated U.S. exchanges and overseas public diplomacy programs, and collected/analyzed post-Soviet public opinion data. He is a former tenured professor at Northeastern State University (Oklahoma) with numerous publications on Russian politics. Alexander built water systems as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador. He has degrees from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and University of California, Santa Barbara.