Vali Nasr

Professor of International Politics, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University

Vali Nasr is the author of “Forces of Fortune: The Rise of a New Muslim Middle Class and What It Means for Our World” (Free Press, 2009).

He is also Professor of International Politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and Senior Fellow with The Dubai Initiative, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Earlier, he taught at the University of San Diego and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He was named Carnegie Scholar in 2006.

Dr. Nasr has expertise in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, political Islam, comparative politics of South Asia and the Middle East and democratization in the Muslim world.

He has published numerous books, including "Democracy in Iran," "The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future," "The Islamic Leviathan: Islam and the Making of State Power," "Mawdudi and the Making of Islamic Revivalism" and “Forces of Fortune: The Rise of a New Muslim Middle Class and What It Means for Our World”.

A Life Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Dr. Nasr has been published in Foreign Affairs, The New Republic, Foreign Policy, Time, the New York Times, and the Washington Post, among others.

He is an editor of the Oxford Dictionary of Islam and has appeared on CNN, the BBC, National Public Radio, and not least of all The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

Dr. Nasr was born and raised in Tehran, Iran, having earned his degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1991), the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (MALD, 1984), and Tufts University (BA, 1983).