Ely Ratner

Ely Ratner is currently a Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense and director of the Department’s China Task Force. From 2015 to 2017, Dr. Ratner served as the Deputy National Security Advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, and from 2011 to 2012 in the Office of Chinese and Mongolian affairs at the State Department. He also previously worked in the U.S. Senate as a Professional Staff Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and in the office of Senator Joe Biden. Outside of government, Ratner has worked as the executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, a senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and as an associate political scientist at the RAND Corporation. Ratner received his B.A. from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.