Esther Brimmer currently serves as the executive director and chief executive officer of NAFSA: Association of International Educators. Dr. Brimmer’s distinguished career includes three appointments within the U.S. Department of State, serving most recently as the assistant secretary for international organization affairs from April 2009 to 2013.

Prior to joining NAFSA, Dr. Brimmer was professor of practice of international affairs at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs where she served a two-year term as the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor. She was also an adjunct senior fellow for international institutions at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a senior adviser at McLarty Associates.

She was previously deputy director and director of research at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at the Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) from 2001 to 2009, and was a member of the SAIS faculty. There she specialized in transatlantic political and security affairs.

Dr. Brimmer's previous government service included two years in the State Department's Office of Policy Planning, where she worked on European Union, Western Europe, UN, and multilateral security issues. Dr. Brimmer was also a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in spring 2000. From 1993-1995 she served as Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. In that capacity she worked on UN, peacekeeping, human rights and political-military issues. Dr. Brimmer has previously worked as a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, as a Legislative Analyst at the Democratic Study Group in the U.S. House of Representatives, and as a management consultant with McKinsey Company.

Dr. Brimmer received her D.Phil. (Ph.D.) and master's degrees in international relations from the University of Oxford and her B.A. in international relations from Pomona College in Claremont, California.

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