Jana Nelson is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Western Hemisphere Affairs. She is the principal advisor to the Secretary of Defense on security and defense policy for the thirty-four-nation region that encompasses Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America.

Prior to her current appointment, Mrs. Nelson was a Senior Policy Advisor to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield, advising on the Western Hemisphere, food security, climate, and synthetic opioids.

In the federal government, Mrs. Nelson served in the Department of State, as staff in the U.S. Senate, and as a foreign affairs officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. In these roles, she helped stand up the Multilateral Security Support Mission to Haiti; coordinated the first version of the Women, Peace, and Security bill in 2012; supported efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking; and helped resettle former Guantanamo Bay detainees.

In addition to her government service, Mrs. Nelson has held government relations and geostrategic advisory roles in the private sector, in the technology and consumer goods sectors. She is also an advisory board member on leave to various think tanks and non-profits, including the Woodrow Wilson’s Latin America Program, the Brazil Institute, and the U.S.- Mexico Foundation. She is a Council on Foreign Relations Term Member and a David Rockefeller Fellow at the Trilateral Commission. She has been a contributor on Latin America policy to the New York Times, Vox, and Folha de S. Paulo.

Mrs. Nelson received her M.A. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and her B.A. in International Relations from the University of Brasília. She speaks Portuguese, Spanish, and French. In Latin America, Nelson has lived and worked in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina.