Dr. Joe Felter is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia. Dr. Felter served as the principal advisor to senior Department leadership for all policy matters pertaining to development and implementation of defense strategies and plans for the region. He was responsible for managing the bilateral security relationships with nations of the region and guiding DoD engagement with multilateral institutions. Prior to joining OSD, Dr. Felter held teaching and research appointments at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Hoover Institution and the Stanford Technology Ventures Program. His previous academic positions include Director of West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center and adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University’s School for International and Public Affairs.
A former US Army Special Forces and Foreign Area Officer, Dr. Felter served in a variety of special operations and diplomatic assignments. Dr. Felter is Founder of BMNT a Silicon Valley based technology incubator and problem-solving platform which Forbes magazine named as one of the nation’s top 25 Veteran-Founded Startups in America in 2016.
Dr. Felter received a B.S. from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Master of Public Administration with a concentration in negotiations and conflict resolution from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Graduate Certificate in Management from the University of West Australia, and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. He is a graduate of the Singapore Armed Forces Senior Service College and was a US Army War College Fellow at the Hoover Institution.