Classes are taught at the United Nations Foundation, location one block from The White
House, by Professor of Practice, Ray Walser, Ph.D.
With over 40 years of teaching experience and an extensive career as a policy analyst
and foreign service officer, Dr. Walser hopes to provide students in the program with
real-world insight and first-hand knowledge of what careers in international affairs,
governmental or non-governmental, may look like. In his time as an academic, Dr. Walser
has taught courses on international relations, U.S. foreign policy, and politics and
conflict in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. His classroom experiences range
from teaching undergraduates at Bluefield College, cadets at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, interns/students in the University of Georgia's Washington
Semester program and graduate students in Missouri State University's Department of
Defense and Strategic Studies, also in Washington, D.C. Dr. Walser also served as
chairperson for Western Hemisphere area studies at the U.S. Department of State's
Foreign Service Institute. In short, Dr. Walser is no stranger to engaging with students
interested in shaping diplomacy and international relations in our country and around
the world.
Outside the classroom, Walser served as a Foreign Service Officer from 1980-2007 in
a wide variety of overseas locations such as Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica,
and South Africa as well as the Bureaus of African, European and Western Hemisphere
Affairs here in the U.S. In 2007, he began applying his collective experience to a
new role as a Senior Policy Analyst for The Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington,
D.C., where he focused on political and security issues in Latin America. Prior to
retiring in 2013, he conducted field research in Colombia and Mexico and served as
an electoral observer during the presidential elections in El Salvador and Honduras.
In addition to his government service and academic career, Walser has authored op-eds
and other publications featured in the New York Times, New York Post, The Washington
Times, Christian Science Monitor, Miami Herald, The National Interest and the Journal
of International Security Affairs. He has shared his expertise in testimony before
both houses of Congress on several occasions between 2008 and 2011, and has appeared
on CNN, PBS, Al Jazeera, BBC World Service and other media.
Morgan Lorraine Viña is a national security professional with deep experience in Washington
including the executive branch, Capitol Hill, and the think tank and advocacy communities.
Morgan currently serves as a Principal in the national security practice at Invariant
where she works with leading defense tech nontraditionals and startups. Prior to this
role, she served as Vice President for Government Affairs at the Jewish Institute
for National Security of America (JINSA), where she led the organization’s congressional
and executive branch engagement.
During the first Trump administration, Morgan served in the Department of Defense
as Chief of Staff for International Security Affairs in the Office of the Secretary
of Defense.
Prior to joining the Department of Defense, Morgan served as Chief of Staff and Senior
Policy Advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki R. Haley. As Chief of
Staff, Morgan advised Ambassador Haley and senior mission management on executing
program and policy goals. As Senior Policy Advisor, she coordinated the development
and analysis of critical and sensitive UN and foreign policy priorities related to
the management of the United Nations and U.S. funding.
In Congress, Morgan worked for Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), Chairman of the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations, where she advised the chairman on U.S. policy on international
organizations, Sub-Saharan Africa, foreign assistance, and international development.
She got her start in Washington as a Research Assistant in the Heritage Foundation’s
Margaret Thatcher Center. She later would lead the organization’s work on Sub-Saharan
Africa.
Morgan is a graduate of Sweet Briar College and holds a master’s from the London School
of Economics. She also participated in American University’s Washington Semester Program
and studied at St. Anne’s College and the University of Oxford.
