Dr. Gordon's background includes service as a Senior Fellow and Director at the Overseas Development Council, a senior staff member on the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, and as the regional economic policy and democracy/governance advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development based in Nairobi, Kenya.
In the 1980s, Dr. Gordon pursued an academic career with a joint appointment at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University. He has also taught at the College of William and Mary, Princeton University, Georgetown University and the University of Nairobi. Dr. Gordon's latest book, Managing Strategic Surprise, co-edited with Ian Bremmer and Paul Bracken, will be published later this year by Cambridge University Press.
Dr. Gordon is a graduate of Bowdoin College and undertook graduate studies in both political science and economics at the University of Michigan, where he received his PhD in 1981.