Vali Nasr is a Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins-SAIS, and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. He served as the Dean of the school, and as Senior Advisor to the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. He is the author of several books and articles, notably The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat; Forces of Fortune: The Rise of a New Muslim Middle Class and How it Will Change Our World. Nasr is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Action Council and has been the recipient of grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. He earned his masters from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in international economics and Middle East studies in 1984, and his PhD from MIT in political science in 1991.