The New America Foundation is pleased to announce that Shamila N. Chaudhary has joined its National Securities Studies Program to serve as a Senior South Asia Fellow.

New America President Steve Coll said, "We are thrilled that Shamila is joining our South Asia team at New America. She has worked all of the hard issues on the inside of government and yet retains a fresh, creative, energized and inter-disciplinary perspective. She offers new thinking and hard-won expertise that our debates about Pakistan and the region sorely need."

Chaudhary joins New America after her work at the National Security Council, where she served as the Director for Pakistan and Afghanistan for the Obama administration. Prior to her work at NSC, she worked on the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, where Chaudhary advised Secretary Clinton on Pakistan and Afghanistan. She has also worked on democracy and governance issues at the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Chaudhary was a 1999 David L. Boren National Security Education Program Fellow and studied Urdu in Lahore, Pakistan, as part of her fellowship. She earned an M.A. in International Affairs from the American University's School of International Service and a B.A. in English Literature and Women's Studies from the University of Toledo. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a South Asia Analyst at the Eurasia Group.