• William Garvelink

    Former United States Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo

  • Julie Bulgrin

    U.S. International Development Finance Corporation

  • Samantha Custer

    AidData

  • Larry Nowels

    Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network

  • Stephanie Segal

    CSIS Economics Program

  • Meredith Broadbent

    CSIS Scholl Chair in International Business

  • Conor Savoy

    CSIS Project on Prosperity and Development

  • David Salvo

    Alliance for Securing Democracy (German Marshall Fund)

  • Susan Fine

    Former Acting Assistant to the Administrator, USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning

Biographies

 

Julie Bulgrin

Julie Bulgrin serves as Managing Director for Congressional Affairs at U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). She has fourteen years of experience working in U.S. foreign policy, national security, and development.

Prior to assuming her current position, Ms. Bulgrin served as Deputy Senior Director for Legislative Affairs at the National Security Council, working on issues spanning the globe and helping see numerous initiatives into law, including the Women’s Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act, Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018 (FIRRMA), and the Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development (BUILD) Act. She also has more than ten years of experience at the Department of State in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs in various positions including Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Regional, Global, and Functional Affairs, Director, and Senior Congressional Advisor for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Near Eastern Affairs, and East Asia and Pacific Affairs. Ms. Bulgrin also worked as Congressional Affairs Specialist at U.S. Southern Command at the Department of Defense in charge of all Senate-related engagements on behalf of the Command.

Ms. Bulgrin earned her B.A. in International Relations and Political Science from University of Wisconsin-Madison and M.A. in International Studies from American University.

William Garvelink

William J. Garvelink was nominated as Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo by President Bush on May 30, 2007 and confirmed by the Senate on June 28 and sworn in on October 22, 2007. He arrived at post on November 22, 2007 and served until May 10, 2010.

Mr. Garvelink was appointed to his last position in May 2001. His responsibilities included oversight of USAID’s worldwide humanitarian assistance and democracy programs. Offices within the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict and Humanitarian Assistance include the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), Office of Food for Peace (FFP), Office of Democracy and Governance, Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM) and the Office of Private and Voluntary Cooperation (PVC). Mr. Garvelink is a member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Minister Counselor.

Prior to this appointment, Mr. Garvelink served since 1999 as the USAID Mission Director in Eritrea. He administered a development and relief program valued at more than $55 million.

From 1988 to 1999 Mr. Garvelink served in OFDA first as the Assistant Director for Response and then as the Deputy Director. While in OFDA, he conducted assessments and directed relief operations in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Near East, Europe and in the former Soviet Union. Mr. Garvelink led Disaster Assistance Response Teams (DARTs) to Albania, Armenia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, northern Iraq, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia and most recently Bam, Iran. He chaired the USAID Task Force for the Indian Ocean Tsunami, the USAID Task Force for the Pakistan Earthquake and the USAID Lebanon Task Force.

Prior to his work in OFDA, Mr. Garvelink served for two years in the Department of State’s Bureau for Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) with responsibilities for southern Africa. He was posted for four years in Bolivia for USAID and served for three years as a staff member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr. Garvelink holds degrees from Calvin College (BA) and the University of Minnesota (MA).

Susan Fine

Susan Fine was the Senior Deputy Assistant Administrator, and Acting Assistant to the Administrator, in USAID’s Bureau for Policy, Planning and Learning (PPL).

Ms. Fine, a Senior Foreign Service Officer with rank of Minister Counselor, has served in multiple positions in Washington and overseas including Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator, PPL, responsible for policy and development cooperation, Director for Development Cooperation, and Mission Director for Senegal and the Sahel, where she managed a complex, multi-sector portfolio in Senegal, the Sahel Resilience program and bilateral activities in Niger and Burkina Faso. Prior to that, she was Director for East African Affairs in the Africa Bureau where she oversaw USAID’s programs in the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes countries.

From 2010-11, Ms. Fine was Deputy Mission Director responsible for southern Sudan during its historic self-determination referendum and transition to independence. Ms. Fine began her development career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Swaziland and served with USAID in Uganda, South Africa, and Senegal before returning to Washington in 2004 to work in the Bureau for Asia and the Middle East and the Office of the Chief Operating Officer.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Colby College and a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

David Salvo

David Salvo is senior fellow and managing director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy (ASD) at GMF. An expert in Russian affairs, Salvo has been analyzing the Kremlin’s authoritarian toolkit to undermine democracy at home and abroad throughout his career.

Salvo has worked at ASD since 2017, first as a resident fellow and then as deputy director. He is the principal author of The ASD Policy Blueprint for Countering Authoritarian Interference in Democracies and makes regular media appearances, including on NPR, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and ABC News, to discuss US-Russian relations, Russian foreign policy toward its near abroad, and Russian tactics and objectives to undermine democracy in the United States and Europe.

Prior to joining GMF, Salvo was a foreign service officer in the US Department of State, serving most recently as the deputy secretary of state’s policy advisor for Europe, Eurasia, and international security issues. He also advised senior-level State Department negotiators on the protracted conflicts in the South Caucasus, worked on US policy toward NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and served overseas in Russia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He speaks Russian and Serbo-Croatian and has a basic knowledge of French.

David received his master’s degree from Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies and a bachelor’s degree in government and Russian from Georgetown. He is an avid music lover and plays in several DC-area bands, including a tribute to the renowned rock band Phish.

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Samantha Custer

Samantha Custer directs AidData's Policy Analysis Unit (PAU), which blends qualitative and quantitative approaches to answer real-world questions in a way that is both academically rigorous and policy relevant. Her research examines the influence of development investments and public diplomacy efforts, generates new evidence on the use and impact of open data, and leverages surveys to learn from the experiences of decision-makers in low- and middle-income countries regarding the impact of external money and ideas on domestic policy reforms. She holds a dual masters in Foreign Service and Public Policy from Georgetown University and has a 20-year track record of leading teams and supporting evidence-based decision-making as an international relations scholar-practitioner.

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Larry Nowels

Larry Nowels is a co-chair of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network.

He has worked as a consultant with a number of foundations and global development advocacy organizations, including the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition, the ONE Campaign, and Advocates for Development Assistance on foreign aid reform, aid effectiveness and international affairs budget issues.

Previously, he was a specialist in foreign affairs at the Congressional Research Service. During his 33-year career at CRS, he wrote extensively on U.S. foreign assistance policymaking, including the congressional role in legislating, and overseeing American foreign aid programs.

Nowels attended the University of Redlands, University of Salamanca, American University School of International Service, and the National War College.

Stephanie Segal

Stephanie Segal is a senior fellow of the CSIS Economics Program, where her research interests include economic competitiveness, U.S.-China economic relations, and the role of international financial institutions in the global economy. Until 2017, Ms. Segal served as codirector of the East Asia Office at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Prior to Treasury, she was senior economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), where she covered a range of emerging market and advanced country economies. Earlier in her career, Ms. Segal served as an economist in the Western Hemisphere, South and Southeast Asia, and International Monetary Policy offices at Treasury; as an adviser to the U.S. director at the IMF; and as an analyst and associate in mergers & acquisitions at J.P. Morgan in New York. She earned her master's degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and her undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Meredith Broadbent

Meredith Broadbent serves as a senior adviser (non-resident) with the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. A former chair of the U.S. International Trade Commission, she was assistant U.S. trade representative for industry, market access, and telecommunications from 2002-2008. In that position, she was responsible for developing U.S. policy that affected trade in industrial goods, telecommunications, and e-commerce. She led the U.S. negotiating team for the Doha Round negotiations to reduce tariff and nontariff barriers on industrial goods. From 2008 to 2010, she was a trade adviser at the Global Business Dialogue. Earlier in her career, Broadbent served as a senior professional staff member with the Committee on Ways and Means of the U.S. House of Representatives, where she drafted and managed major portions of the Trade and Development Act of 2000, legislation to authorize normal trade relations with China, and the Trade Act of 2002, which included trade promotion authority. She was instrumental in the development and House passage of the implementing bills for the North American Free Trade Agreement and Uruguay Round Agreements. Broadbent holds a bachelor’s of arts in history from Middlebury College and a master’s of business administration from the George Washington University School of Business and Public Management.

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Conor Savoy

Conor Savoy is a senior fellow with the Project on Prosperity and Development at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Conor brings nearly 15 years of experience to working on issues at the intersection of U.S. foreign policy and international development. Prior to CSIS, he was the executive director of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN), a diverse advocacy coalition focused on increased effectiveness of U.S. foreign assistance. In this role, he worked closely with U.S. government development agencies, implementing partners, Congress, and other stakeholders to advance a positive aid reform agenda. In addition to his work at CSIS, he frequently consults with U.S. government agencies, NGOs and other implementing partners, and the private sector on evolving trends in international development. Prior to joining MFAN, he worked as the director of policy and advocacy for the Global Innovation Fund, a social-first impact investor backed by the U.S. government and other bilateral donors. Earlier, he served as deputy director of the Project on Prosperity and Development at CSIS. In this role, Conor helped build an innovative research program focused on the evolving role of the private sector in international development. He has also worked as a researcher at the Council on Foreign Relations concentrating on U.S. foreign and national security policy. Conor has taught as an adjunct lecturer in American University's School of Public Affairs, teaching a graduate-level course on comparative public administrative systems. He has published widely on U.S. foreign policy, aid reform, development finance, and other emerging trends in international development. Conor holds an M.A. in international relations from Boston University and a B.A. with honors in history from George Washington University.

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