Ambassador (ret.) Michael Carpenter is a Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
He served as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Europe at the National Security Council from 2024-2025. Prior to this, Dr. Carpenter served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the world’s largest regional security organization representing over a billion people across 57 countries.
From 2015-2017, he served in the Pentagon as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, and Conventional Arms Control. Ambassador Carpenter holds a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Stanford University and a master’s degree and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley.
He speaks fluent Polish and Slovenian, as well as some German, French, and Czech.