Karl F. Inderfurth is currently an adjunct professor at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs (ESIA). He held the inaugural chair in U.S. – India Policy Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) from 2011-13. Prior to this appointment, he was the Director of the International Affairs Program at ESIA. In 2015 and 2013 he was Sol M. Linowitz Visiting Professor of International Affairs at Hamilton College.

From 1997 – 2001, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, with responsibility for, among other countries in the region, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. During part of this time he was ‘dual-hatted’ as Special Representative for Global Humanitarian De-mining (1997-1998), overseeing Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s “De-mining 2010 Initiative” to remove landmines around the world that threatened civilian populations by the year 2010.

From 1993 to 1997 he served as the U.S. Representative for Special Political Affairs to the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador. His portfolio included UN peacekeeping and disarmament. Ambassador Inderfurth also was appointed as Deputy U.S. Representative to the UN Security Council and took part in Council missions to Somalia, Mozambique, Burundi, Rwanda, and Western Sahara.

Prior to his presidential appointments, Mr. Inderfurth worked as a State and Defense Department correspondent and later a Moscow Correspondent for ABC News (1981-1991) where he traveled extensively to the then-Soviet republics. He won several honors for his reporting on the nation’s security concerns, including an Emmy award and an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University award.

Previously, Mr. Inderfurth served in several government positions: from 1975 through 1976 on the staff of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, chaired by Senator Frank Church; from 1977 to 1979 on the staff of the National Security Council at the White House, as Special Assistant to Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski; and from 1979 to 1981, he was Deputy Staff Director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. Inderfurth received his M.A. from Princeton University, his B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was a Fulbright Scholar at Strathclyde University in Scotland, where, in 2013, he was presented the degree of Doctor of the University honoris causa. He has served on the board of the National Democratic Institute, The Asia Foundation and the Landmine Survivors Network, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Fulbright Association.