Lisa Curtis is deputy assistant to U.S. president Donald Trump, and Senior Director for South and Central Asia on the National Security Council (NSC). She was appointed to the NSC in 2017 by H.R. Macmaster. Prior to her appointment to the NSC, she was a Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.Curtis was a staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee handling the South Asia portfolio for then Committee Chairman Senator Richard Lugar. From 2001 to 2003 was a senior adviser in South Asia Bureau at the U.S. State Department where she advised the Assistant Secretary of State on India-Pakistan relations. In the late 1990s she was a political analyst on South Asia in the Central Intelligence Agency. She has also served as a political officer in the U.S. embassies in Islamabad and New Delhi during the Clinton Administration.Curtis has a bachelor's degree in economics from Indiana University. She resides in Herndon, Virginia with her husband and two children.