Thomas Cynkin

Thomas Cynkin oversees R Street’s policy directors, leading them and their teams to achieve preeminence in all areas in which we work. He is also a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council.

Before joining R Street, Cynkin served as a U.S. diplomat, a corporate executive with Fujitsu Limited, and on the senior staff of Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service.

As a foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State, Cynkin served as a Japanese-speaking diplomat in Japan; as chargé d’affaires in Geneva, Switzerland; as special assistant to two deputy secretaries of state and advisor to two U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations; and as chief of staff to an under secretary of state.

In addition to completing a fellowship at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, Cynkin has taught graduate seminars at George Washington University. His publications range from a 1988 book titled Soviet and American Signaling in the Polish Crisis (St. Martin’s Press) to a series of articles featured in The New Atlanticist in 2023.

Cynkin holds a PhD from Tufts University. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Makiko, and their daughter, Celeste.