Carolyn Gruber is a Fellow and Deputy Director of the Environmental Security Program at the Stimson Center. She most recently served as a Foreign Affairs Officer with the Office of Marine Conservation in the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She worked primarily on international fisheries management in the Eastern and Western Pacific Ocean, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Her portfolio included serving as a U.S. delegate to the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission and the Western and Central Atlantic Fisheries Commission. Carolyn was the lead coordinator and policy advisor for the South Pacific Tuna Treaty and related Economic Assistance Agreement, including managing a multi-million-dollar annual grant to the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency. In addition, Carolyn supported the team charged with implementing the Department’s strategy to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, including supporting the 21-agency Working Group on IUU Fishing and its subsidiary bodies.  

Carolyn was previously a Foreign Affairs Specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NOAA Fisheries). Her work at NOAA Fisheries was wide-ranging; Carolyn was the coordinator and primary policy advisor for U.S. obligations to the International Whaling Commission, including all domestic obligations related to aboriginal subsistence whaling. In support of that line of effort, Carolyn led team of interagency and external writers and contributors to write the Environmental Impact Statement for Issuing Annual Catch Limits to the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission for a Subsistence Hunt on Bowhead Whales for the Years 2019 and Beyond. While at NOAA Fisheries, Carolyn also served as the Program Coordination Officer. In this role, Carolyn was the primary liaison between NOAA Fisheries and NOAA and provided policy guidance to the NOAA team on the full breadth of NOAA Fisheries’ issues, including marine conservation and management issues (domestic and international); Endangered Species Act, essential fish habitat, Marine Mammal Protection Act consultations; fishery disaster requests; domestic fisheries rulemakings; and Fishery Management Council appointments. 

Carolyn holds a Bachelor of Arts dual degree in Geography and Environmental Studies from the University of Richmond and a Master of Environmental Management degree from Duke University. Following graduate school, Carolyn spent time working with the Cape Cod Commercial Fishermen’s Alliance, coordinating policy outreach in support of local fishermen, and then came to Washington, D.C. in 2015 as a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellow.