Celina Realuyo

Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs, National Defense University

Celina Realuyo is an assistant professor of National Security Affairs at the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University, in Washington, D.C.

Her research is focused on U.S. national security, illicit networks, transnational organized crime, and counterterrorism issues in the Americas.

Ms. Realuyo is a former U.S. diplomat, international banker with Goldman Sachs, U.S. foreign policy advisor under the Clinton and Bush Administrations and professor of international security affairs at the National Defense, Georgetown and George Washington Universities.

She has over two decades of international experience in the public, private and academic sectors and appears regularly in the media, including CNN en Espanol, Voice of America and Univision Radio.

From 2002 to 2006, Ms. Realuyo served as the State Department Director of Counterterrorism Finance Programs in the U.S. Secretary of State’s Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism.

In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, she returned to government service to apply her international banking skills to the financial front of the war on terror. She managed a multimillion dollar foreign assistance program aimed at safeguarding financial systems against terrorist financing.

Under her stewardship, the United States delivered training and technical assistance to over 20 countries on four continents (including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia), training over 1,800 foreign counterparts.

Prior to returning to Washington, Ms. Realuyo was a private banker in London with Goldman Sachs International providing strategic wealth advisory services to the most prominent families in the world.

Previously, she had a distinguished career as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer serving as a political officer abroad in Madrid, Panama and the U.S. Mission to NATO, Brussels.

Ms. Realuyo holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), a B.S. from Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, as well as a Certificate from l’Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris, France.