Lisa Anderson

Lisa Anderson "is the sixth dean to lead the School of International and Public Affairs, established in 1946. She has been on the faculty of Columbia since 1986 and just prior to her appointment, served as chair of the political science department at Columbia. Dean Anderson also served as director of Columbia's Middle East Institute from 1990 to 1993.

"One of the United States's most eminent scholars of the Middle East and North Africa, Dean Anderson's academic specialty is state formation and regime change. She is the author of Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-first Century (Columbia 2003); The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830–1980 (Princeton 1986); editor of Transitions to Democracy (Columbia 1999); and coeditor of The Origins of Arab Nationalism (Columbia 1991). She has also written more than 50 scholarly articles. She has testified before the Foreign Relations committees of both the House and the Senate, published commentary in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, and appeared as an expert on the news programs of the major television and radio networks.

"In addition to her responsibilities at Columbia, Dean Anderson is the past president of the Middle East Studies Association and chair of the board of directors of the Social Science Research Council. She is a member of the council of the American Political Science Association and serves on the board of the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs. She is member emerita of the board of Human Rights Watch, where she served as cochair of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Dean Anderson holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MA in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She earned a PhD in political science from Columbia University, where she also received a certificate from the Middle East Institute. She was awarded an honorary doctor of laws from Monmouth University in 2002. From 1981 to 1986, she was an assistant professor of government and social studies at Harvard University." 

She is a member of the Human Rights Watch Middle East Advisory Committee and serves on the US advisory board for the Democracy Coalition Project.


 * Former President, Middle East Studies Association of North America
 * President (since 2011), American University in Cairo
 * Director, Realizing Rights
 * Advisory Committee, FilmAid International
 * International Advisory Board, Global Master's in Development Practice