Charles Curtis is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Before joining CSIS, he served as founding president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a non-profit organization working to reduce the threats from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. He is currently NTI’s President Emeritus and an Emeritus Board Member. Curtis founded NTI in 2001 with former Senator Sam Nunn and CNN founder Ted Turner. Prior to this, Curtis was executive vice president and chief operating officer of the UN Foundation. He also led the energy practice at Hogan & Hartson, a Washington, D.C.-based law firm with domestic and international offices.
He was a founding partner of the Washington law firm Van Ness Feldman and served as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission from 1977 to 1981. He has held positions on the staffs of the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Treasury Department, and the Securities and Exchange Commission. He served as vice chair of the International Security Advisory Board of the U.S. Department of State and is a former member of the Defense Policy Board and the Threat Reduction Advisory Committee of the U.S. Department of Defense. He is a current member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Curtis is a recipient of the Energy Bar Association Lifetime Achievement award, as well as the Chairman’s Award from the Securities and Exchange Commission, and a three-time recipient of the Distinguished Service Medal awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy. He received Energy Daily’s Public Policy Leadership Award for achievements in senior energy and national security policy posts in government and the private sector, and the 2016 Schlsinger Medal for Energy Security. He is a 2018 Public Service Award recipient of the Boston University School of Law. Curtis holds a degree from Boston University School of Law in 1965 and from University of Massachusetts Amherst.
