Brian Roraff is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service. He comes to CISA from the Department of State, where he most recently served as the Director of the Office of Northern European, Baltic, and Arctic Security Affairs. In that capacity he led the office in supporting Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO, establishing the State Department’s only office in the Arctic Circle, in Tromsø, Norway, and working with some of the United States’ closest NATO Allies in supporting Ukraine against Russia’s further invasion. Prior to that, he led the U.S. Embassy in Tallinn, Estonia as Chargé d’Affaires ad interim from 2019-2022.
Staff assignments include working as a Foreign Policy Fellow to Senator Chris Murphy in the U.S. Senate, and as a Special Assistant to the State Department’s Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. He served two tours in Afghanistan, first as the State Department Senior Civilian Representative at the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Ghor Province, and subsequently in Embassy Kabul in the office that coordinated the work of U.S. civilians working in PRTs across the country.
Other assignments in Washington include as Deputy Director of the Office of Eastern European Affairs, which was responsible for U.S. policy on Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus, and in the Office of Central Asian Affairs. Overseas, he has served in the U.S. Embassies in Russia, Ukraine and Armenia.
Prior to joining the State Department, he worked at the American Bar Foundation, the American Bar Association’s research institute that explored the intersection of
law and society. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Illinois and a master’s degree in history from The George Washington University. He is married with two daughters.