Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Brett D. Schaefer is the Jay Kingham fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at The Heritage Foundation.

Schaefer analyzes a broad range of foreign policy issues, focusing primarily on international organizations and sub-Saharan Africa. A frequent visitor to the region, he has written extensively on economic development and peace and security issues there and how they affect U.S. national interests. Schaefer is a thoughtful critic of the United Nations and its affiliated funds and programs and frequently speaks and publishes analysis on the organization and how it can be reformed.

Schaefer has authored more than 120 public policy papers and more than 50 book chapters, articles and opinion pieces. He also has graded countries for several additions of Heritage's annual Index of Economic Freedom, which gauges the level of economic freedom of countries around the world. He speaks frequently on international affairs before business groups, congressional staff and academic audiences. He has testified before Congress on the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Millennium Challenge Account.

He joined Heritage in 1995, working first as a Research Assistant in the think tank's Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. He was named a Kingham Fellow in September 1996. From March 2003 to March 2004, Schaefer worked at the Pentagon as an assistant for international criminal court policy.

Schaefer holds a bachelor's degree in anthropology from Florida State University. He also has a master's degree in international development economics from the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C.