Berkley Center

James Alexander recently left the U.S. Department of State after over 20 years of service and is a 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.