Max Meizlish

Max Meizlish is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he conducts research with the Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). He joined FDD from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), the primary U.S. agency responsible for administering economic sanctions.

Max’s work focuses on economic statecraft, with an emphasis on sanctions policy and implementation. His research also examines alternative financial messaging and payment systems, as well as digital identity and blockchain-based financial technology. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, the New York Post, and other outlets.

Max’s previous honors include being named as a Penn Kemble Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, as well as a U.S.-ROK Next Generation Leader by the National Bureau of Asian Research. He is a member of the Alexander Hamilton Society and serves on the board of the Hebrew Free Loan Society of Greater Washington, which provides more than $1 million in interest-free loans to members of the Washington-area Jewish community.

Max holds a master’s degree in global security studies from Johns Hopkins University, where he focused on the impact of sanctions on target-state economies and decision making. He earned a B.A. in government and politics from the University of Maryland, College Park, with minors in global terrorism studies and Israel studies.