WASHINGTON - The Wilson Center is continuing to grow its revamped fellowship program, naming four new Distinguished Fellows: former CNN foreign affairs correspondent and Russia expert Jill Dougherty, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Cuba and Venezuela Carrie Filipetti, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia Anka Lee, and former CIA analyst and cybercrime expert Ken Westbook. 

“The Wilson Center fellows program is a cornerstone of our legacy and foundational to our congressionally chartered mission for non-partisan scholarship which is why we have prioritized updating the program this fall,” said Natasha Jacome, Wilson Center President and CEO. “These four new Distinguished Fellows are exciting additions to our fellows program and will significantly expand the range of our work and enhance our other priority initiatives like Congressional education.”  

Dougherty, Filipetti, Lee, and Westbrook will join recently announced Wilson Center Distinguished Fellows Ambassador David Hale and  Ambassador (ret.) Philip Reeker to lead mission-focused projects in four main areas: strategic competition; economic statecraft; technology and innovation; and regional scholarship.  

The Wilson Center is also expected to announce a competition process for other new fellows soon. 

Jill Dougherty is an expert on Russia and the former Soviet Union. In her three-decade career with CNN she served as Foreign Affairs Correspondent, based in Washington, D.C., where she covered the State Department. Dougherty previously served as U.S. Affairs Editor for CNN International; Managing Editor of CNN International Asia/Pacific, based in Hong Kong; and CNN's Moscow Bureau Chief and Correspondent. From 1991 to 1996 she was CNN White House Correspondent. In 2013-14 she was a Fellow at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she pursued research on Russia’s mass media. Dougherty also currently serves as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and a fellow at the Kennan Institute. 

Carrie Filipetti is an award-winning expert in Latin America policy. She previously served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cuba and Venezuela, and Deputy Special Representative for Venezuela at the U.S. Department of State, roles for which she received a Superior Honor Award. From 2019–2020, she was Senior Advisor to the Havana Incidents Task Force, coordinating an inter-agency effort on unexplained health incidents affecting U.S. personnel. She earlier served as a Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Carrie began her career at a private family foundation and graduated from the University of Virginia.  

Anka Lee is a national security expert who has served in senior leadership roles in government. Lee was previously Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia and USAID Deputy Assistant Administrator for multilateral affairs. He also served as global policy manager at WhatsApp and advised Fortune 500 companies. From 2017–2020, he was chief adviser to California State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon on international issues where he created new bilateral initiatives with the governments of Mexico, Canada, Japan, and Germany. Born in Hong Kong and raised in California, he is a first-generation college graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard. 

Ken Westbrook is one of the foremost experts on cybercrime that is affecting consumers in the United States. He served for 33 years at the Central Intelligence Agency, including four years in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). Mr. Westbrook capped his intelligence career by serving as the US Intelligence Community’s  Director of Information Sharing and Mission Requirements. In the private sector, Westbrook served as a strategy consultant for the US subsidiary of SAP and for Oracle Corporation. He founded as serves as CEO of the nonprofit Stop Scams Alliance and also joined the adjunct faculty at Georgetown University, where he created and taught a graduate-level class in Information Management. 

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