Thomas O. Melia

Thomas O. Melia "has been at the forefront of international democracy and governance assistance for more than 25 years and has worked in more than 40 countries. He is a Senior Adviser to Democracy International. Mr. Melia is Deputy Executive Director of Freedom House and Adjunct Professor at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University.

"For more than a dozen years, Mr. Melia was a senior official at the National Democratic Institute, where he designed and conducted political party development programs in every part of the world. From 1998 to 2001, he was the Institute's Vice President for Programs. He managed NDI’s programs in Central and Eastern Europe (1988-1993) and in the Middle East (1993-1996), before assuming responsibility for the Institute’s global strategy development and program evaluation (1996-1998).

"In 2001-2002, Mr. Melia was a Senior Associate at the international political consulting firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, where he managed opinion research projects for corporate, political and nonprofit clients. From 2002 to 2005, he served as Director of Research at Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. He conducted survey research, among other things, on the effect of terrorism on American diplomacy, public opinion in democratizing Muslim countries, and post-conflict political development in Northern Ireland and the Balkans.

"Before working at NDI, Mr. Melia was Associate Director of the Free Trade Union Institute of the AFL-CIO, a precursor to the Solidarity Center, and worked for six years as Legislative Assistant for foreign and defense policy to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY).

"Mr. Melia has published several dozen articles on American history and international politics and has been interviewed on CNN International, BBC, the Voice of America and other television programs. He was Consulting Editor of the World Encyclopedia of Parliaments and Legislatures, published in 1998 by Congressional Quarterly, Inc. He received a MA from The Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a BA from The Johns Hopkins University." 


 * Advisor, Americans for Informed Democracy