Jessica Mathews

Jessica Tuchman Mathews (born July 4, 1946) was President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, D.C., from 1997 to 2015. She has also held jobs in the executive and legislative branches of government, management and research in nonprofits, and journalism.

Jessica Tuchman Matthews was born on July 4, 1946, to Barbara Tuchman (1912–1989), historian and Pulitzer Prize winner, and Lester Tuchman (c. 1904–1997), medical researcher and professor of clinical medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Her maternal grandfather was banker Maurice Wertheim.

Mathews attended Radcliffe College (1963–1967), earning her A.B. in 1967. She continued her education in biochemistry and biophysics at California Institute of Technology (1968–1973), receiving her doctorate in 1973.

From 1977 to 1979, she was Director of the Office of Global Issues of the National Security Council, covering nuclear proliferation, conventional arms sales policy, chemical and biological warfare, and human rights. In 1993, she returned to government as deputy to the Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs.

She served on the editorial board of the Washington Post from 1980 to 1982, covering energy, environment, science, technology, arms control, health, and other issues. Later, she became a weekly columnist for the Washington Post, writing a column that appeared nationwide and in the International Herald Tribune.

From 1982 to 1993, she was founding Vice President and Director of Research of the World Resources Institute, a center for policy research on environmental and natural-resource management issues.

From 1993 to 1997, she was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and served as Director of the Council's Washington program. While there, she published "Power Shift" (1997), an article in Foreign Affairs that was chosen by its editors as one of the most influential in the journal's 75 years.

From 1997 to 2015, she was President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a foreign policy think tank in Washington, D.C..

She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Group.

Mathews is married to former Air Force General Charles G. Boyd.