AWC Gains Strong Additions to Staff
February 27, 2024
The Afghanistan War Commission’s co-chairs Shamila N. Chaudhary and Dr. Colin F. Jackson, today announced several important additions to the Commission’s professional staff: Elizabeth Nathan Conrad, Team Chief for Interviews and Information Management; Edmund J. “E.J.” Degen, Team Chief for Military Operations and Security Force Assistance; Leah Fiddler, Senior Analyst for Policy and Diplomacy; Avery Grayson Analyst for Development; Luis Vertiz, Senior Data Analyst; and Katherine Zimmerman, Senior Counterterrorism Analyst.
“The additions of Elizabeth, E.J., Leah, Avery, Luis and Katie to our ranks further strengthen the Commission’s world-class staff of highly educated, experienced, accomplished and dedicated national security professionals,” said co-chairs Chaudhary and Jackson. “We’re thrilled to have them on the team, and excited about the contributions they will make to the independent, objective, candid and constructive study of the Afghanistan War that Congress tasked us with developing.”
The Afghanistan War Commission continues to actively seek candidates to fill remaining professional staff positions as it nears full strength. Those interested in joining the AWC’s world-class, mission-driven team should contact Executive Director Jaime Cheshire through the Commission’s website.
Elizabeth Nathan Conrad is a national security researcher and practitioner with over fifteen years of experience spanning the executive branch, legislative branch, private sector, and non-profit community. She spent over seven years as a professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee, conducting hundreds of interviews with senior U.S. Government officials and foreign partners to provide oversight of the U.S. Department of Defense. Ms. Conrad also served as an action officer in the Special Operations directorate of Office of Secretary of Defense (OSD) Policy, where she managed the Countering Violent Extremism portfolio. While working as a researcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses, she performed research and analysis of authoritarian regimes and terrorist organizations derived from primary source captured documents, traveling to the Middle East to conduct interviews with former Iraqi generals who had served under Saddam Hussein. She has degrees from the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs and Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program.
Edmund J. “E.J.” Degen is a retired career U.S. Army field artillery officer who rose to the rank of colonel and most recently served as the director of the Chief of Staff, Army’s Operation Enduring Freedom Study Group. He commanded artillery units at all levels through the brigade and served as the V Corps (U.S.) chief of plans for the Iraq invasion at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, chief of future operations for U.S. Forces Korea, and chief of staff for Combined Joint Interagency Task Force 435 in Afghanistan. Col. Degen was a fellow on the Chief of Staff, Army (CSA) inaugural Strategic Studies Group and served as the Senior Fellow the following year. He has multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Col. Degen earned an MMAS (Master of Military Art and Science) from the Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies and an MS in Strategic and Operational Planning from the Join Advanced Warfighting School. He has coauthored two official U.S. Army histories, including Modern War in an Ancient Land: The U.S. Army in Afghanistan, 2001-2014.
Leah Fiddler draws upon on her extensive U.S. Government interagency experience in her new Commission role. Her career has included serving at the National Security Council during two presidential administrations and in roles at the White House, the Pentagon, Truman National Security’s Afghanistan evacuation operations center, Bono’s ONE international advocacy organization, and academia. Her expertise includes humanitarian assistance, international development, democracy building, and constitutions. Ms. Fiddler is a Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project; a Member of Foreign Policy for America’s NextGen initiative; and an alumni advisor to the University of Southern California. She is learning Pashto and speaks French fluently. She studied at Sciences Po Paris and at the Universities of Chicago, Southern California, Stanford, and Georgetown.
Avery Grayson joins the commission from Foreign Policy (FP) magazine, where she conducted long-form analysis on international security and governance. Prior to joining FP, she worked at the UN Refugee Agency in Jordan, primarily covering Syria and Syrian refugees in the region. Ms. Grayson has a B.A. in Global Affairs from Yale University and an M.Sc. in Middle East Politics from SOAS University of London. After completing her M.Sc. she joined the Overseas Development Institute, where she worked as a research assistant and supported the “Lessons for Peace: Afghanistan” program which conducts research into lessons learned and best practices for international practitioners in Afghanistan, especially regarding aid and political economy. She later worked on the editorial team at the London-based The New Arabnewspaper, managing coverage of Afghanistan, including during the fall of Kabul.
Luis Vertiz comes to the Commission after a decade with the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), where he reviewed various reconstruction programming in Afghanistan as senior program analyst. His tenure at SIGAR reviewed topics ranging from the U.S. Department of Defense’s security assistance programming, corruption in fragile, aid-dependent economies, and reviews of international organizations, like the UN, operating in Afghanistan. As part of his duties, he volunteered for a civilian deployment to Embassy Kabul in 2017 and traveled on many temporary tours of duty to Afghanistan. Mr. Vertiz graduated from Stanford University with an undergraduate degree in Political Science, where he was conferred honors from University’s Center for International Security and Cooperate for this thesis on the use of Provincial Reconstructions Teams in the first five years of the War in Afghanistan. He previously interned at the Stimson Center, Center for American Progress, and Senator Bill Nelson’s office.
Katherine Zimmerman was a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and advised AEI's Critical Threats Project before joining the Commission staff. Her research has focused on the global Salafi-jihadi movement and counterterrorism as well as related trends in the Middle East and Africa. Ms. Zimmerman has testified before Congress, and her commentary and analyses have been widely published, including in CNN.com, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, FoxNews.com, The Hill, Routledge Handbook of Transnational Terrorism, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a 2024 non-resident fellow at the Irregular Warfare Initiative, and a member of the RESOLVE Network Research Advisory Network. She holds an MA in terrorism, security and society from King’s College London and a BA in political science and modern Middle East studies from Yale University.
Background
In FY 2022, a bipartisan group of members of the U.S. Congress from majority and minority leadership and various committees (Foreign Affairs; Intelligence; Armed Services) appointed the following fifteen commissioners to the Commission:
Dr. Anand Gopal
Luke Hartig
Dr. Seth Jones
Laurel Miller
LTC (ret.) Chris Molino
Gov. Bob Taft
Dr. Andrew Wilder
Shamila N. Chaudhary, Co-Chair
Dr. Colin F. Jackson, Co-Chair
Michael Allen
LTG (ret.) Robert Ashley
Jeremy Bash
Amb. Ryan Crocker
Jeffrey Dressler
Daniel Fata
Click here to read biographies of the Commissioners.
Click here to read about key staff hires on the Commission.
Click here to read the full text of Sec. 1094 of the FY22 NDAA establishing the Commission.
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Media queries and meeting requests should be directed to Matt Gobush, Strategic Communications Advisor, at awc@awc.senate.gov.