Experts

William J. Antholis

Fast Facts

  • Former managing director at The Brookings Institution
  • Director of international economic affairs for the National Security Council in the Clinton Administration
  • Expertise on climate change, India, China, international economics, development, U.S. foreign policy

Areas Of Expertise

  • Foreign Affairs
  • Asia
  • Domestic Affairs
  • Energy and the Environment
  • Science and Technology
  • Economic Issues
  • Trade
  • Elections
  • Politics
  • The Presidency

William J. Antholis has served as director and CEO of UVA’s Miller Center of Public Affairs since January 2015. In that time, the Miller Center has strengthened its position as the leading nonpartisan research institution on the American presidency and worked with scholars across the University of Virginia to deliver vital research to policymakers and the public.

Miller Center initiatives have included the First Year Project 2017, the 2019 Presidential Ideas Festival, the completion and release of the George W. Bush Oral History project, the launch of the Barack Obama Oral History project, the Hillary Rodham Clinton Oral History project, the co-production of the PBS documentary Statecraft: The Bush 41 Team, the creation of The LBJ Telephone Tapes exhibit with the LBJ Library, and the COVID Commission Planning Group. The Miller Center has supported the work of the College of Arts and Sciences Democracy Initiative and partnered with the Karsh Institute of Democracy in developing and delivering Election 2020 and Its Aftermath, the UVA Democracy Biennial, and the Democracy Dialogues. Antholis also co-chaired the Presidential Inaugural Committee for President Jim Ryan’s installation in October 2018.

Before coming to the Miller Center, Antholis served as managing director at The Brookings Institution from 2004 to 2014. In that capacity, he worked directly with Brookings' president and vice presidents to help manage the full range of policy studies, develop new initiatives, coordinate research across programs while ensuring quality and independence, and strengthen the policy impact of Brookings’ work. Antholis is the author of Inside Out India and China: Local Politics Go Global (2013) and co-author (with Strobe Talbott) of Fast Forward: Ethics and Politics in the Age of Global Warming (2010). He has published articles, book chapters, and opinion pieces on U.S. politics, U.S. foreign policy, international organizations, the G8, climate change, and trade. From 1995 to 1999, Antholis served on the White House National Security Council and National Economic Council as well as at the State Department. From 1999-2004, he was director of studies and senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, an International Affairs Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a visiting scholar at Princeton University. 

Antholis is an Archon of the Greek Orthodox Church and serves on the board of trustees of the American College of Greece and Titan Cement International.

Antholis earned his PhD from Yale University in politics (1993) and his BA degree with honors from the University of Virginia in government and foreign affairs (1986).

 

William J. Antholis News Feed

PBS NewsHour Capitol Hill Correspondent Lisa Desjardins joins Miller Center Director and CEO William Antholis to discuss the future of Congress, the state of American democracy, and—in keeping with Lehrer’s legacy of journalistic integrity—how she goes about covering Congress during a time of great political disruption.
William Antholis Miller Center Presents
Led by William Antholis, director of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, the former House members analyzed the state of Congress and what could be done to improve it.
William Antholis The Daily Progress
The executive branch has grown more powerful, and in recent years the nation has been forced to grapple again with the question of how and when we hold our presidents accountable.

Former President Donald Trump has been charged in four separate criminal cases, two of them in federal court, including an election interference case related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump’s lawyers have denied any wrongdoing and have argued that the former president cannot be prosecuted. President Joe Biden has also faced some legal challenges, including for mishandling classified documents. In this event, a panel of experts will help us make sense of the various cases and examine the broader issue of executive power.
Barbara Perry, Saikrishna Prakash, and William Antholis Miller Center Presents
Congress established the Commission on the National Defense Strategy by statute to examine and make recommendations about national defense strategy. The Commission will issue a report to Congress, the president, and the American public in the summer of 2024 to describe the U.S. strategic threat environment and to inform future budget requests, legislation, appropriations, and Department of Defense operations and planning.

To prepare recommendations for this report, the Commission is holding public conversations and meeting with senior national security leaders, business leaders, members of Congress, and foreign allies and partners. We invite you to join Commission Chair Jane Harman and Vice Chair Eric Edelman, along with commissioners Tom Mahnken, General Jack Keane, Mara Rudman, and Alissa Starzak, for a public conversation moderated by Miller Center Director and CEO William Antholis.
Eric Edelman, Mara Rudman, and William Antholis Miller Center Presents
As we head toward the 2024 election, partisan dysfunction threatens to fracture the United States Congress, one of the pillars of our American constitutional system. When did Congress work better, and why? How could it function well again?

Sidney Milkis, the Miller Center's White Burkett Miller Professor of Governance and Foreign Affairs, moderates a conversation about the past, present, and future of Congress with William Galston, Molly Reynolds, and Philip Wallach, whose new book, Why Congress, was named by the Wall Street Journal as one of the best political books of 2023.
Sidney Milkis, William Antholis Miller Center Presents
Saturday marks the second anniversary of the heavily destructive war between Russia and Ukraine. To get a perspective on the conflict, UVA Today talked with William Antholis, director and CEO of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center for Public Affairs.
William Antholis UVA Today