Joshua Meservey

Joshua Meservey

Former Research Fellow, Africa, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies

Joshua studied African geopolitics, counterterrorism, and refugee policy at The Heritage Foundation.

This expert is no longer a staff member at The Heritage Foundation.

Joshua Meservey was a research fellow for Africa at The Heritage Foundation. He studied African geopolitics, counterterrorism, and refugee policy.

He is a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer who served in Zambia and extended his service there to work for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Afterwards he joined Church World Service (CWS) based out of Nairobi, Kenya, and traveled extensively in East and Southern Africa interviewing refugees. He ended his time at CWS as Field Team Manager responsible for a multinational team of nearly 100 staff. He later worked at the U.S. Army Special Operations Command and helped write an Army concept paper, and then joined the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center before joining The Heritage Foundation.

He has testified twice before the Senate, four times before the House of Representatives, and once before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. He is lead author of a monograph on al-Shabaab's insurgency and contributed a chapter to the book War and Peace in Somalia published by Oxford University Press. He has written pieces for a wide range of publications including Foreign Affairs, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the National Interest, the Hill, and various journals. His commentary is often featured in various print and digital media outlets, and he has presented at the National Defense University and the State Department.

Meservey holds a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University and a BA in history from the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University.

He lives in Maryland with his wife and two children.