Zane Swanson

Deputy Director, Global Food and Water Security Program
Jon B. Alterman

Zane Swanson is deputy director of the Global Food and Water Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where he investigates the causes and consequences of food and water insecurity in the United States and globally. He is particularly interested in the development and application of evidence-based policy to address the overlapping challenges to food and water security, ecological security, and global development. Trained as an evolutionary anthropologist, Zane’s early research focused on the socio-ecological relationships between human physiology, health, the environment, and lifestyle among agropastoral and semi-nomadic communities living in rural Kenya. Working at the intersection of human biology and global health, his work informed investigations of early childhood growth variation and household cardiometabolic health difference in the context of food and water insecurity, as well as socioeconomic and market access disparities. Prior to joining CSIS, Zane worked in the Pontzer Lab at Duke University, where he also supported research investigating variation in human energy expenditure, physical activity, and life history. Zane holds a BA with Honors in anthropology from Boston University and received his PhD in evolutionary anthropology from Duke University. He hails from Sherman, Connecticut.

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Executive Education

Global Foresight: Preparing for Future Trends

Global Foresight: Preparing for Future Trends is Washington’s premier executive course for mid-to senior-level professionals responsible for helping their organizations identify and prepare for the global macrotrends that will drive change for the next 30 years.

Course Date: April 8, 2025
Registration Closes: April 2, 2025

Seeding Security: Why Agrobiodiversity Loss Threatens National Security

Agriculture is increasingly strained by growing food demand, global conflict, and the loss of its most foundational resource, agrobiodiversity. CSIS experts examine why the loss of agrobiodiversity threatens not just food security, but global security writ large.

Critical Questions by Zane Swanson and Caitlin Welsh — January 21, 2025

Audio Briefs

Conflict, Hunger, and Famine in Sudan

An audio version of “Conflict, Hunger, and Famine in Sudan,” a new Critical Questions by CSIS’s Zane Swanson, Anita Kirschenbaum, and Caitlin Welsh. This audio was generated with text-to-speech by Eleven Labs. 

Podcast Episode by Zane Swanson, Anita Kirschenbaum, and Caitlin Welsh — September 16, 2024

Audio Briefs

Conflict, Hunger, and Famine in Sudan

Less than two years after the outbreak of civil war, famine conditions are confirmed in Sudan. With ceasefire talks faltering and a near-complete lack of humanitarian access, conditions continue to deteriorate for 26 million Sudanese facing acute food insecurity.

Critical Questions by Zane Swanson, Anita Kirschenbaum, and Caitlin Welsh — September 11, 2024

Audio Briefs

Gaza: The Impacts of Famine Will Last Generations

An audio version of “Gaza: The Impacts of Famine Will Last Generations,” a new Critical Questions by CSIS’s Zane Swanson and Caitlin Welsh. This audio was generated with text-to-speech by Eleven Labs. 

Podcast Episode by Zane Swanson and Caitlin Welsh — June 21, 2024

Audio Briefs

Gaza: The Impacts of Famine Will Last Generations

The consequences of famine and war are not resolved when the fighting stops. CSIS experts Zane Swanson and Caitlin Welsh discuss how Gazans will likely carry the physical, mental, and social impacts of hunger and conflict throughout their lives and across generations.

Critical Questions by Zane Swanson and Caitlin Welsh — June 20, 2024

Famine in Gaza

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is unprecedented this century. USAID administrator Power was the first senior U.S. official to state that famine is present in Gaza, but this does not amount to a formal declaration. Will leaders formally declare famine? Can it be halted?

Critical Questions by Caitlin Welsh, Anita Kirschenbaum, and Zane Swanson — April 11, 2024

Living the Global Water Crisis

Join the CSIS Global Food and Water Security Program to discuss the themes of this year’s World Water Day and the tools that researchers and decisionmakers are using to bring human voices to the growing risks to global water security. Featuring Dr. Sera Young.

Event — March 22, 2024