Amanda J. Van Dort serves as a Foreign Policy Fellow at Our Secure Future, where she is the Project Lead for Women, Peace, and Security National Action Plan impact research studies. She is a 2026 American Democracy and Technology Fellow at the McCain Institute, where her work focuses on countering foreign actors’ use of gendered disinformation to undermine democratic trust in the United States. She also teaches courses on feminist statecraft, gender and conflict, and women and global politics at Johns Hopkins SAIS and George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.
Until 2025, Amanda served as Chief of Staff and Division Chief for Policy, Planning, and Public Diplomacy in the Secretary’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, where she led efforts to integrate gender equality across U.S. foreign policy. Over nine years at the State Department, she advanced Women, Peace, and Security and atrocity prevention policy, and, as a Presidential Management Fellow, worked on humanitarian assistance and international humanitarian law across the Departments of State and Defense.
Earlier in her career, Amanda served as Country Director for Emerge Global in Sri Lanka, supporting adolescent girl survivors of sexual violence, and as a Harold W. Rosenthal Fellow with the International Organization for Migration in Geneva.
She holds a Master of Public Policy from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Science from Eastern Michigan University.
My Team: Fellows
