Matt Chessen

Matt Chessen is a career U.S. diplomat, technologist and author who is currently serving at Embassy of Tokyo where he leads regional technology policy initiatives. Prior to this, he served as the Acting Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary of State and the Deputy S&T Adviser to the Secretary; Office of the Science and Technology Adviser (2017-2021); State Department Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the George Washington University  (2016-2017) and  the Coordinator for International Cyber Policy for the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs (2014-16). 

Before joining the Foreign Service in 2004, Matt founded an ecommerce company, and worked at Razorfish, managing the strategy development, design and implementation of large corporate websites. Matt served overseas as an Economic officer in Liberia, a Consular and Pol-Mil officer in Iraq, and as a POLAD to ISAF-HQ in Afghanistan. He also worked in Washington D.C. at the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs and at the Office of eDiplomacy, where he led the implementation of an open-source, crowd-working platform for the US government called Open Opportunities.

He holds a J.D. from Georgetown University, and an M.B.A. and B.A. from the University of Arizona. He has earned eight honor awards for his service at the Department of State, including Superior Honor Awards for his work on the Afghan Peace Process and his efforts advancing US international cyber policy. He frequently speaks at national and international events about digital freedom, international technology policy, artificial intelligence, computational propaganda, and emerging technologies.