Nina Hachigian received her B.S. from Yale University in 1989 and her J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1994. Ms. Hachigian is a senior fellow at a new DC-based thinktank, the Center for American Progress, and a visiting fellow at CISAC. She is working on a book project on US major power strategy. From 2001-2006 she was the director for the Center for Asia Pacific Policy and a Senior Political Scientist at RAND. Her research focused on Asian geopolitics, and she increased the budget of the Center ten-fold during her tenure. Earlier, Ms. Hachigian was an international affairs fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, based at the Pacific Council on International Policy in Los Angeles. From 1998 to 1999, Ms. Hachigian worked as a special assistant to Jim Steinberg, the deputy national security advisor, and National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger. Prior to her work at the White House, Ms. Hachigian served as an attorney-advisor to Chairman Robert Pitofsky at the Federal Trade Commission. She was also a clerk at the Ninth Circuit Court and practiced law at O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles.