Brenda Shaffer is Research Faculty at the U.S. Naval Post Graduate School and a senior fellow at a global think tank. She serves as an advisor to governments, international organizations and financial institutions, and as a consultant to businesses and government agencies. Shaffer has written and edited a number of foreign policy and energy books, and she a highly regarded speaker and commentator – including recently for CNBC and Bloomberg TV, in the Wall Street Journal, and at the World Energy Congress.

Research and Real-World Experience

Brenda Shaffer is one of the most thoughtful and well-researched voices on energy and foreign policy. Her unique perspective comes from having worked directly with international business executives and political leaders, as well as holding positions at the world’s foremost academic institutions. In this work, she has authored some of the few academic studies that contribute to energy security theory and the nexus between energy and foreign policy.

Thought Leader, Academic and Author

Brenda Shaffer's books include Energy Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press), which serves as a textbook for over 200 university courses on the geopolitics of energy. She also wrote Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity (MIT Press, 2002), and Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran (Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2001). She was the editor of Beyond the Resource Curse (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) and Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy (MIT Press, 2006).

She is a faculty member of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School and a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center. She has served as a visiting researcher at Georgetown University’s Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies (CERES), research Director for Harvard University’s Caspian Studies Program, an academic advisor to multiple graduate programs in energy studies, and the founding academic advisor to the Baku Summer Energy School. Her academic appointments include the University of Haifa, Bifrost University, the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy, and others.

An Independent Voice

As an independent, research-based expert, Brenda Shaffer has testified before the U.S. Congress and other national and international political bodies. She frequently provides commentary for media outlets worldwide, including recently: CNBC, Bloomberg TV, Fox Business News, CNN, NPR, BBC, Financial Times, and USA Today. Her opinion columns have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, International Herald Tribune, and elsewhere.