Dr. Fareed Yasseen currently serves as Secretary-General of Pugwash-Iraq, the national chapter of the Nobel Peace Prize–winning Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a movement devoted to dialogue and disarmament. He is also engaged in several Track II diplomatic initiatives and serves on various public interest, non-profit commissions and boards.

He recently completed a two-year appointment as Iraq’s Climate Envoy, prior to which he served as Iraq’s Ambassador to the United States (2016–2022) and France (2010–2016), concluding his tenure in Paris as Dean of the Arab Diplomatic Group.

He had joined Iraq’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in July 2004 as Head of the Department of Policy Planning, later serving as Diplomatic Advisor to Deputy President Adil Abd al-Mahdi. In these roles, he actively involved in the negotiations of the U.S.–Iraq Status of Forces Agreement and the Strategic Framework Agreement (2007–2008), as well as in the UN-sponsored International Compact with Iraq.

A graduate of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which awarded him, respectively, a Doctorate in Physics, and a Master’s degree in the Management of Technology, Dr. Yasseen began his career conducting research at both institutions. He later became involved in political activism and human rights advocacy, founding one of the first bilingual online databases documenting enforced disappearances in Iraq.

He has worked and consulted for start-ups, think tanks, and UN agencies, including the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which he joined at the very outset and where he led pioneering efforts to use the Internet to improve transparency and participation in international climate processes, particularly for least developed countries (LDCs).

Dr. Yasseen is a member of the American Physical Society and the International Institute for Strategic Studies. His honors include the Robert and JoAnn Bendetson Public Diplomacy Award (Tufts University, 2016), the rank of Commander in France’s National Order of the Legion of Honor (2016), and the Ambassador of the Year Award from the National U.S.–Arab Chamber of Commerce (2021).