Brian Harding is a leading expert on Southeast Asia with nearly twenty years of experience in U.S.–Southeast Asia relations at top institutions in Washington, DC. From 2020 to 2025, he led a major expansion of programming in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands at the U.S. Institute of Peace, including new initiatives in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Papua New Guinea.
Previously, Brian was deputy director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director for Asia policy at the Center for American Progress (CAP). From 2009 to 2013, he served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense as country director for Asian and Pacific security affairs, managing defense relations with key U.S. partners in Southeast Asia and Oceania.
In 2023, he participated in Sasakawa USA’s U.S.–Japan Research Exchange, conducting research on Japan’s relations with the Philippines and outlining an agenda for U.S.-Japan-Philippines trilateral cooperation. In 2015, he helped organize the inaugural Sasakawa USA Emerging Experts Delegation (SEED) in his role at CAP.
Brian holds degrees from Middlebury College and The George Washington University, has studied in Indonesia and Japan, and was a Fulbright research fellow in Indonesia. He is concurrently an advisor to the U.S.-Philippines Society and a Research Fellow at the Southeast Asia Peace Institute.
