Shamila Chaudhary currently serves as the Democratic Co-Chair of the Afghanistan War Commission

Shamila N. Chaudhary is an international affairs analyst specializing in U.S. foreign policy with a focus on South Asia. She was the President of the American Pakistan Foundation; a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center; and a Senior Fellow at New America. In her personal capacity, she is a member of the Foreign Policy for America Leadership Circle and serves on the Advisory Council of South Asians for America.

Chaudhary worked for over a decade in the U.S. government, including at the White House as Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan on the National Security Council from 2010-2011. She also served in the U.S. Department of State’s Policy Planning Staff as South Asia Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

Since leaving public service in 2011, Chaudhary has assumed a variety of leadership roles in higher education, think tank, non-profit, and private sectors, including at the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group and Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies where she served as Senior Advisor to Dean Vali Nasr from 2013 until 2019.

Her work is regularly cited and published in Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, the New York Times and she has frequently appeared on CNN, BBC News America, NPR, Fox News, and other outlets. She also writes on American socio-economic and political issues, including immigration, civic engagement, refugee resettlement, and identity politics. Chaudhary is also a photographer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post as well as local media outlets and galleries in the Washington, D.C. metro area. She is the co-editor of documentary photography book UnPresidented: The Inauguration of Donald J. Trump and the People’s Response.

Chaudhary earned an M.A. in International Affairs from the American University’s School of International Service and a B.A. in English Literature and Women’s Studies from the University of Toledo. She was born in Punjab, Pakistan and moved to the United States when she was two years old. She is a native of Toledo, Ohio and has been a proud resident of the District of Columbia since 1999.