Dr. Seth Center

Biography

Seth Center is a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). From 2023 to 2025 he served as Acting Special Envoy for Critical and Emerging Technology at the U.S. Department of State, leading U.S. international strategy and diplomatic engagement on artificial intelligence, quantum computing and biotechnology.

He was earlier a senior advisor to the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, where he directed the drafting of its final report. At the National Security Council he was Director for National Security Strategy and History from 2017 to 2019, directing the 2017 National Security Strategy, and he has also served as a historian at the NSC and on the State Department’s Policy Planning staff. He has held senior advisory and fellow roles at the Special Competitive Studies Project and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He holds a PhD from the University of Virginia and a BA from Cornell University.