Michael Schiffer is the senior advisor to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff. Before his current position, Schiffer served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for East Asia in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs. Mr. Schiffer came to the Office of the Secretary of Defense in April of 2009 from the Stanley Foundation where he was a program officer in Policy Analysis and Dialogue responsible for the foundation's Asia programs as well as a range of other US national and global security issues from 2006-2009. From 2004-2005, he was a Council on Foreign Relations Hitachi International Affairs Fellow in Japan. From 1995-2004, Schiffer worked on the staff of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), where he was her senior national security adviser and legislative director. Prior to that, he was director of International Security Programs at New York University's Center for War, Peace, and the News Media and also managed a bed and breakfast inn in Hawaii.

Schiffer is a Center for Asia and Pacific Studies Fellow at the University of Iowa and has published widely on a range of international security, political and media issues. He received his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University and graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and New York University.