Thomas Perriello is the U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan. He rejoins the State Department, having previously served as the Special Envoy for the Great Lakes and the Democratic Republic of Congo and as the Special Representative for the second Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review.

 

Perriello brings over two decades of experience working across the executive branch, the legislative branch, multilateral institutions, and NGOs working on peace, security, and transitional justice issues. He served as Senior Advisor to the Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. For the International Center for Transitional Justice, he worked in Kosovo, Darfur, and Afghanistan. He has worked in parts of the Middle East and South America as well. Prior to his work in the Executive Branch, Perriello was elected to Congress to represent Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, where he served as a founding Member of the Leader’s National Security Working Group and on the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

 

Most recently, Perriello has focused on the security and democracy implications of artificial intelligence as a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Center for Cyber Policy and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Outside of government, Perriello has led the Center for American Progress Action, the Open Society Foundations for the United States, and several non-profits focused on bolstering democracy, advancing human rights and racial justice, and addressing climate change. He has taught at the University of Sierra Leone and University of Virginia School of Law. His publications have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Democracy Journal, Newsweek, Forbes, Washington Post, and Politico. Perriello earned his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctorate degrees from Yale University and is from the Commonwealth of Virginia.