State of the Trump transition

Eric Edelman, a Miller Center practitioner senior fellow, retired as a career minister from the U.S. Foreign Service in 2009 after having served in senior positions at the Departments of State and Defense as well as the White House. As the undersecretary of defense for policy (2005–2009), he oversaw strategy development as the Defense Department’s senior policy official with global responsibility for bilateral defense relations, war plans, special operations forces, homeland defense, missile defense, nuclear weapons and arms control policies, counter-proliferation, counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, arms sales, and defense trade controls. Edelman served as U.S. ambassador to the Republics of Finland and Turkey in the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and was principal deputy assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for national security affairs.

Dan Meyer served as chief of staff to Kevin McCarthy from 2019 to 2023, during McCarthy’s time as House Republican minority leader and as House speaker. Before that, Meyer was assistant to the president for legislative affairs during the George W. Bush administration. He was previously chief of staff to Newt Gingrich, during Gingrich’s time as House Republican whip and as House speaker. Meyer also worked for the Duberstein Group, a lobbying firm, serving as vice president and later president. He is on the board of the Congressional Institute Inc. and holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. 

Mara Rudman is a James R. Schlesinger Distinguished Professor at the Miller Center, where she directs the Ripples of Hope Project, aimed at identifying practical approaches to help democratic leaders resolve key challenges. She serves on the 2022 National Defense Strategy Commission and the Howard University College of Arts and Sciences board of advisors. Rudman also consults for Democracy Forward. She was previously executive vice president for policy at the Center for American Progress, and her government positions have included serving as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs in the Obama and Clinton administrations; deputy envoy for the Office of the Special Envoy for Middle East Peace at the U.S. Department of State; assistant administrator for the Middle East at the U.S. Agency for International Development; and chief counsel to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She received an AB from Dartmouth College and a JD from Harvard Law School.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, a Miller Center practitioner senior fellow, is director of the Katzmann Initiative and visiting fellow with governance studies at the Brookings Institution. She is also an advisory board member for the White House Transition Project, a fellow with the Center for Presidential Transition at the Partnership for Public Service, and was secretary of the Governance Institute. Tenpas is a scholar of the American presidency focused on White House staffing, presidential transitions, and the intersection of politics and policy within the presidency (e.g., presidential reelection campaigns, trends in presidential travel, and polling).

William J. Antholis has served as director and CEO of UVA's Miller Center of Public Affairs since January 2015. In that time, the Miller Center has strengthened its position as the leading nonpartisan research institution on the American presidency and worked with scholars across the University of Virginia to deliver vital research to policymakers and the public. Before coming to the Miller Center, Antholis served as managing director at the Brookings Institution from 2004 to 2014, working directly with Brookings's president and vice presidents. Antholis is the author of Inside Out India and China: Local Politics Go Global (2013) and co-author (with Strobe Talbott) of Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming (2010). He has published articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces on U.S. politics, U.S. foreign policy, international organizations, the G8, climate change, and trade.