Sanam Vakil is the deputy director of the Middle East North Africa program at Chatham House, where she leads project work on Iran and Gulf Arab dynamics. Vakil’s research focuses on regional security, Gulf geopolitics, and future trends in Iran’s domestic and foreign policies. She is also the James Anderson professorial lecturer in the Middle East Studies department at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS Europe) in Bologna, Italy. Before these appointments, Vakil was an assistant professor of Middle East studies at SAIS in Washington, DC. 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. Vakil is the author of Action and Reaction: Women and Politics in Iran (Bloomsbury 2013). She publishes analysis and comments for a variety of media and academic outlets. Vakil received her BA in political science and history from Barnard College, Columbia University and her MA and PhD in international relations and international economics from Johns Hopkins University.