Dean and James T. Shotwell Professor of International Affairs, School of International and Public Affairs
Columbia University

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 as Dean, 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 this country’s most eminent scholars of the Middle East and North Africa, Dean Anderson’s academic specialty is state formation and regime change. Author of The State and Social Transformation in Tunisia and Libya, 1830-1980 (Princeton University Press, 1986), co-editor of The Origins of Arab Nationalism (Columbia University Press, 1991), and editor of Transitions to Democracy (Columbia University Press, 1999), she has written more than 35 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.

Dean Anderson holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and a Master of Arts 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. From 1981 to 1986, she was an Assistant Professor of Government and Social Studies at Harvard University.

In addition to her responsibilities at Columbia, Dean Anderson is on the Boards of Directors of the Social Science Research Council, the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs, and Human Rights Watch, where she serves as Co-chair of Human Rights Watch/Middle East. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the editorial committee of Comparative Politics.