Barry Lowenkron is Vice President of International Programs, directing the Foundation's international grantmaking.

Before joining MacArthur in September 2007, he was Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, representing the President and the Secretary of State abroad as well as before the U.S. Congress, the press and the public. He led a bureau of over 100 staff, administering over $300 million in democracy programming worldwide. His work has taken him across the globe, including to Russia, China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South Africa.

As Assistant Secretary Mr. Lowenkron spearheaded the establishment of a global human rights defenders fund and a set of core principles for protection of non-governmental organizations that are now official U.S. policy. He has led high-level human rights and democracy dialogues in key countries and with regional institutions such as the European Union and the African Union. He was one of the architects of a path-breaking initiative for the broader Middle East – a multilateral effort to nurture indigenous reform efforts in economics, politics, education, and women’s rights known as the Forum for the Future.

In earlier posts spanning five Administrations, Lowenkron worked on a range on international issues across a number of federal agencies. He helped fashion post-Cold War security policies for Europe, and was the principal drafter of the landmark National Intelligence Publication, Global Trends 2010, which studied how demographics, food and water, and environment impact traditional national security interests. Lowenkron also served as Director of European Security Affairs at the White House National Security Council, Civilian Special Assistant to Gen. Colin Powell, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Special Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence; and senior member of the State Department’s Policy Planning staff under Secretaries Shultz, Powell, and Rice.

From 1979 until 2005, Lowenkron was an Adjunct Lecturer in American Foreign Policy at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University, where he taught courses on American Foreign Policy. He has been a Ford Foundation Fellow on Arms Control and Eastern Europe and a Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow. Mr. Lowenkron is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Mr. Lowenkron received his M.A. with distinction in 1977 from the Nitze School of Advanced International studies and his B.A. with high honors in 1973 from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.