Sanam Vakil is James Anderson Adjunct Professor
Adjunct Professor of Middle East Studies at SAIS Europe
Director, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House

Sanam Vakil is the James Anderson Adjunct Professor of Middle East Studies at The Johns Hopkins University SAIS Europe and a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University associated with the Working Group on Islamism and the International Order. Sanam is also Deputy Director and Senior Research Fellow in the Middle East North Africa Programme, Chatham House where she leads the Iran Forum project focusing on future trends in Iran's domestic and foreign policy and follows wider Middle Eastern issues. Before these appointments, from 2003-2005, Sanam was an assistant professor of Middle East Studies at SAIS Washington. She served as a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations also providing research analysis to the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa department. Sanam provides research, commentary and political risk analysis for companies and organizations working in the Middle East. She has been consulted by high ranking government officials in the United States and Europe. Vakil holds a PhD in international relations from SAIS. Professor Vakil is the author of numerous monographs, book reviews, working papers and articles in U.S. and international journals on Middle East and U.S. foreign policy.