The Pacific Council is hosting an in-person New Member Orientation on Tuesday, April 7th, at 5 pm PT to welcome our newly elected members. This is an opportunity to build meaningful connections with fellow new members, hear directly from current members about their experiences with the Pacific Council, and meet the President & CEO and Pacific Council staff.

At this event, you will hear how current members engage with the Pacific Council and how their unique Pacific Council experiences have impacted their personal and/or professional lives.

All newly elected and current Pacific Council members are welcome to attend! Come expand your network, share what inspired you to become a member, and tell us what you're most excited to dive into in the year ahead. 

If you have any questions, please email membership@pacificcouncil.org, and a staff member will be in touch shortly.

Guest Speaker

Professor Mieczysław (Mietek) Boduszyński teaches U.S. foreign policy at Pomona College, as well as courses on the Middle East, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, democracy promotion, and democratization. In 2025, his contributions as a teacher were recognized with a Wig Distinguished Professor Award, the highest honor bestowed on Pomona faculty. He also organized and led Pomona’s first-ever short-term summer traveling seminar, "Diplomacy and Human Rights in the Mediterranean," an immersive learning experience during which students spent one week in Brussels and two weeks in Morocco exploring diplomatic policy and practice around human rights issues.

He is an expert on U.S. foreign policy, democratization and democracy promotion, post-conflict stabilization, transitional justice, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and the Middle East and North Africa. He has also conducted research in and written about Japan and South Korea.

Prior to joining Pomona, Boduszyński was a diplomat with the U.S. Department of State with postings in Albania, Kosovo, Japan, Egypt, Libya, and Iraq. During the 2022-2023 academic year, he took a public service leave and worked at the Pentagon for the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy as a policy advisor on issues related to civilian protection as well as atrocities, war crimes, and accountability in Ukraine.

From 2019-2020, Boduszyński served as a volunteer advisor on the Biden/Harris campaign foreign policy team. He was a 2020-2021 American Political Science Association Congressional and Steiger Fellow serving as a foreign policy advisor in the office of Representative Ted W. Lieu (CA-33). In 2021, Boduszyński was selected as a Truman National Security Fellow. In 2021, Boduszyński was selected as a Truman National Security Fellow, and in 2024, he joined the Leadership Circle of Foreign Policy for America. He is also a member of the Pacific Council.

A frequent op-ed contributor to publications such as Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, Lawfare, and Just Security, Boduszyński's first book is about democratization in the Balkans. His second book, US Democracy Promotion in the Arab World: Beyond Interests vs. Ideals, analyzes U.S. policy responses to the Arab Spring. He is also the co-author of a textbook titled Research Methods in Politics and International Relations, the second edition of which was published in 2025.

Boduszyński was a 2016-2018 Center for Public Diplomacy Research Fellow at the University of Southern California, a 2017-2018 resident fellow at IAU College in Aix-en-Provence, France, and a visiting professor at Sciences Po-Paris School of International Affairs (Spring 2018). He has also been a visiting scholar at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (Summer 2017) and the University of Gothenburg-V-Dem Institute. He has taught at the American University of Cairo, Temple University—Japan Campus, European University in Tirana (Albania), the University of San Diego, and KIMEP University in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Guest Speaker

Radin Rahimzadeh is an entrepreneur, investor, podcast host, and advocate whose work sits at the convergence of sustainable technology, equitable innovation, and global policy. Rooted in California and engaged across the world, she is deeply committed to ensuring that the benefits of innovation reach those who have historically been left at the margins.

Radin is the founder and CEO of Fore Transit, a Forbes 30 Under 30-recognized company developing patented technologies that measurably reduce energy consumption and emissions in heavy-duty vehicle fleets. In 2022, Radin expanded on the company's mobile environmental IoT vision as a Pacific Council on International Policy AMPLIFY fellow. Prior to Fore Transit, Radin was a global consultant deploying Autonomous Vehicle and Smart City technologies with communities to meet United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Her work as an investor reflects the same values that animate her entrepreneurship. She seeks out founders driven by intentionality and conviction, particularly those working to expand access, reduce friction, and advance equity in entrenched industries. As an Iranian-American woman who has built at the frontier of technology and sustainability, Radin understands firsthand that progress requires not only bold ideas, but the full participation of voices that have too often been excluded from the table.

In parallel to building and investing in technology, Radin co-hosts Sprezzatura, a podcast dedicated to thoughtful, unhurried dialogue with the thinkers, founders, and creators shaping the cities and industries we inhabit. Each season of Sprezzatura is set in a different global city, following the life journeys of guests from diverse fields and backgrounds through conversations that illuminate the values, decisions, and defining moments behind their leadership.

Guest Speaker

Dr. Lisa Saum-Manning is the Associate Director of the International Security and Defense Policy Program, a senior political scientist at RAND, and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. Her research interests focus on aspects of strategic planning for the U.S. Armed Forces and U.S. Department of State, including security cooperation, space, conflict prevention in fragile countries, unconventional warfare, and WMD nonproliferation. Saum-Manning recently served an appointment as a senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Conflict Stabilization Operations as the office implements the congressionally-mandated Global Fragility Act. Additional recent field research focuses on building sustainable security capacity in Africa, Central and South America, and disaster recovery in Puerto Rico. Saum-Manning's career trajectory at RAND began with a deployment to Afghanistan where she served as an analyst for the Commanding General of the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command (CFSOCC-A). Her role was to provide research and analysis on capacity-building and development in Afghanistan. Prior to RAND, Saum-Manning worked in the Nonproliferation and National Security Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory where her research assessed nuclear infrastructure capacity-building in developing countries. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Guest Speaker

Seth Stodder is a lawyer, teaches national security law at the University of Southern California Law School, and serves as a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.  He served in the Obama Administration as Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Borders, Immigration & Trade, and as Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for Threat Prevention and Security.  He also served in the George W. Bush Administration as Director of Policy for U.S. Customs and Border Protection in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.  Mr. Stodder lives in Los Angeles, and is a frequent commentator on global affairs, national security, migration and borders, and international trade.  He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and was a 2008 Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States.  He received his B.A. from Haverford College, and his J.D. from the University of Southern California Law School.