About Speaker

Amb. Robert Ford is a scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, where he writes about the Middle East and North Africa. Robert Ford was the U.S. Ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014. He received the annual Profile in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston in 2014 for his staunch defense of human rights in Syria. Ford was the U.S. Ambassador in Algeria from 2006 – 2008, where he boosted bilateral cooperation in education and the rule of law.

He served in Iraq during the war, where he helped stand up the new Iraqi government after the fall of Saddam Hussein and later helped implement the withdrawal of American forces starting in 2009. He also served in Bahrain, Cameroon, Egypt, Turkey, and Washington. Before joining the diplomatic service, Ford was a teacher with the Peace Corps in Morocco from 1980 – 1982.

Ford speaks English, Arabic, and French and appears regularly in U.S., European, and Arabic media; he writes frequently for the London-based Majalla news magazine.
He retired from eight years of teaching at Yale University in 2023 and has given guest lectures at universities and colleges around the U.S., Canada, and Europe.