Speaker Information

Global Issues 2010

Peter Bechtold

Dr. Peter Bechtold has had a long and distinguished career researching and teaching on the Middle East, North Africa and Central and Southwest Asia. He is chairman emeritus of Near East and North Africa Area Studies at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute. He has also taught graduate level courses and seminars at Georgetown, George Washington, Johns Hopkins, Maryland, and Oregon Universities, and at Army, Naval and Air War colleges and the Marine Corps and National Defense Universities. He has conducted field research in 25 Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries and his writings on these subjects have been widely published.

Dr. Bechtold’s most recent positions were as Adjunct Scholar at the Middle East Institute and visiting professor at the College of William and Mary. He has a double PhD and an MA from Princeton, and is fluent in Arabic, German and French.