Lisa Anderson served first as Provost and then as President of the American University in Cairo for nearly eight years, until January 2016. She is Dean Emerita of the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, where she was the James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations. She received her PhD from Columbia University and also taught at Harvard University. Her research examines state formation in the Arab world; regime change in developing countries; and social science and public policy globally. She is author of The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya and Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-first Century as well as numerous edited volumes and scholarly articles. Dr. Anderson has served on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch; as the president of the Middle East Studies Association and as Chair of the Board of the Social Science Research Council. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
