Ambassador (Ret.) Nicholas Burns to discuss Trump Administration’s Global Foreign Policy Challenges at Yale

New Haven, Conn.— Ambassador (Ret.) Nicholas Burns will present the George Herbert Walker Jr. Lecture in International Studies at Yale on Tuesday, May 2.

Titled “The Trump Administration’s Global Foreign Policy Challenges,” his talk will be delivered at 4:30 p.m. in Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Ave. Sponsored by the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, it is free and open to the public.

Ambassador Burns is the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. He is Faculty Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project and Faculty Chair of the programs on the Middle East and South Asia. He is Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and a Senior Counselor at the Cohen Group. From 2014-2016, he was a member of Secretary of State John Kerry’s Foreign Affairs Policy Board at the U.S. Department of State. He served in the United States Foreign Service for twenty-seven years until his retirement in April 2008. He was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2005 to 2008. Prior to that, he was Ambassador to NATO (2001-2005), Ambassador to Greece (1997-2001), and State Department Spokesman (1995-1997). He worked on the National Security Council staff where he was Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia Affairs and Special Assistant to President Clinton and, before that, Director for Soviet Affairs for President George H.W. Bush. Earlier in his career, he worked at the American Consulate General in Jerusalem and in the American Embassies in Egypt and Mauritania. He serves on the Board of several corporate and non-profit organizations.

George Herbert Walker III, formerly the U.S. ambassador to Hungary, established this lecture series in 1986 in memory of his father, a graduate of the Yale Class of 1927. Previous George Herbert Walker Jr. Lecturers in International Studies have included George Schultz, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Madeleine Albright, Brent Scowcroft, James Baker III, George Mitchell, Richard Holbrooke, Carla Hills, Christopher Hill, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Goldstone, John Major, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, among other noted international figures.