The New America Foundation has hired a deputy director for its foreign-policy program and is turning its sights on Cuba. Patrick Doherty, who was communications director at the Center for National Policy, led by former Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., will join Director Steven Clemons at NAF's American Strategy Program next month. "I am much more of a policy guy at heart than a communications guy," says Doherty, who has a master's degree in security studies from Tufts University's Fletcher School. Among other projects, Doherty will help the think tank grow its U.S.-Cuba policy initiative, aimed at forging a stronger relationship between the two countries.

Doherty, 37, has shaped his career around conflict resolution and peace-building in places that have historically lacked both. He spent a decade working with organizations, including Catholic Relief Services, on post-conflict reconstruction in the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans. Hailing from Buffalo, N.Y., and Cincinnati, Doherty graduated from American University in the early 1990s. He says that watching the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall as a college student sparked his interest in the field.

Doherty's experience as a blogger fits well with New America Foundation's vision of communicating ideas more rapidly and to a wider audience -- qualities that Washington think tanks aren't generally known for. ...

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