Leadership

Jacob Olidort, Ph.D.

Chief Research Officer & Director of American Security

It is better to do something than to do nothing while waiting to do everything.

- Winston Churchill

Media

Jacob Olidort serves as Chief Research Officer & Director of American Security at the America First Policy Institute. Jacob is a historian of the Middle East with over a decade working on national security issues in the U.S. government and in different research institutions. Most recently he served as an advisor in the Office of former Vice President Mike Pence and as a foreign policy advisor to the late Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and to Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO). He also served in the Central Intelligence Agency and as an advisor on Middle East Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Outside of government, Jacob served as Director of Research at JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense & Strategy and as a Soref Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He taught at American University and at George Washington University, and was a Fulbright Scholar to the United Arab Emirates, a Rhodes Scholarship Finalist, and a term member in the Council on Foreign Relations. Jacob holds a B.A., magna cum laude, from Brandeis University, an A.M. from Harvard University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University.