Morgan Poyant is the senior expert on defense sector reform at USIP. She provides thought leadership and technical support for policy and programs, as well as for transnational security challenges like corruption, organized crime, cybersecurity, military to civilian transitions, and demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration of combatants.

She is an integrator and convener and promotes the alignment of policy and programs to strategic policy goals, resources, best practices, and partners and allies.

Poyant joined USIP after four years as co-owner and COO of 413, a small business that provides a spectrum of technical and institutional support to the U.S. Departments of State and Defense. Prior to launching her firm, she worked for six years as a contractor at the U.S. Department of State focused on African security programs and policy. In this role, she led the development of shareable products and cooperation mechanisms that revealed gaps and opportunities for border and regional security investments and policies across the U.S. government, partners and multilateral institutions. She led interagency integration into Department of Defense exercises in Africa and led interagency working groups on the G5 Sahel and terrorism in Mozambique.

Before working at the State Department, Poyant supported the Department of Defense in various capacities, including as an analyst in support of Special Operations Command Africa, capabilities-based assessments for Combatant Commands and the Office of the Secretary of Defense, process mapping and engineering for AFRICOM, and joint operational planning. She began her career in international development at the U.S. Agency for International Development, Millennium Challenge Corporation and several NGOs.

Poyant’s areas of expertise and research include security sector governance and reform, civil-military relations, fragility and stability, wargaming, border security, and counterterrorism.

She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s degree from Syracuse University.