Travis Adkins is USADF's 10th President and CEO. Previously, he served as the Deputy Assistant Administrator for Africa at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Mr. Adkins is also a Lecturer of African and Security Studies at the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where he concurrently teaches in the Prison Scholars Program of Georgetown’s Prisons and Justice Initiative.

As an international development leader, he has over two decades of experience working in governance, education, humanitarian affairs, and women’s and youth empowerment in over 50 nations throughout Africa and the Middle East. This includes serving as Staff Director of the House Subcommittee on Africa, working with leading international NGOs and think tanks, as well as within several branches of the United Nations system.

He is an alumnus of the International Affairs Fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations, a former Senior Fellow of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and a recipient of academic appointments from Carnegie Mellon and New York Universities.

Mr. Adkins has served in numerous international election observation missions in Africa and the Middle East with the National Democratic Institute, is a regular contributor to national and international media outlets on African affairs and is a Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He holds Master’s degrees in International Affairs and Education from The New School and Lehman College, and is a graduate of Fisk University, one of our nation's illustrious Historically Black Colleges and Universities.