Dana Stroul is Director of Research and Shelly & Michael Kassen Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a role she assumed in February 2024. From 2021 to 2023, she served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, leading U.S. defense policy amid crises like the Israel–Hamas War and Iran’s regional actions. Prior roles include senior staff on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (2013–2018), co-chairing the bipartisan Syria Study Group, and work in the Defense Department, U.S. Embassy in Cairo, and think tanks. She holds an M.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown and a B.A. from the University of Virginia.