Dr. William Lawrence is the Director of North African Area Studies and a Senior Academic Fellow-in-Residence. He teaches at American University and served for years on the Council’s Advisory Committee and as its lead lecturer on North Africa.
Dr. Lawrence lived and worked in six North African countries for twelve years and served as a senior diplomat, analyst, and program manager in the region for over three decades. Since 2011, he served in Rabat as International Crisis Group’s North Africa director, in Dubai as Control Risk’s North Africa director, and in New York as Freedom House’s senior North Africa expert.
Previously, he served as Senior Advisor for Global Engagement in the State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES), working with Republican and Democratic administrations on Muslim World outreach. He co-created the Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) program, the U.S. Science Envoy Program, and the Maghreb Digital Library; co-chaired the U.S.-Egypt Science and Technology Development Fund for four years; and helped negotiate and implement the first major agreement since the 1970’s with Libya. He served as the North Africa Team Lead for the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). In the Near Eastern Bureau’s Office of Maghreb Affairs, he served as the State Department’s lead Tunisia and Libya desk officer. He served on a variety of shorter and longer-term assignments in 24 Muslim-majority countries from Mauritania to Malaysia, including service in Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech, Nouakchott, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Benghazi, Alexandria, and Cairo.
He has designed and taught courses at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins, George Washington, Tufts, two Moroccan universities, and many U.S. federal agencies on North African History, Politics, Security, Religion, and Culture; Middle Eastern Comparative Politics; Global Politics; Issues in Security and Countering Violent Extremism; Homeland Security; and U.S. Relations with the Muslim World.
He appears regularly on National Public Radio, BBC, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, and over three dozen Middle Eastern and North African media outlets. He co-authored After the Uprisings: Political Transition in Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen and has published analysis in Foreign Policy, World Politics Review, the Guardian, Le Monde, Figaro, Nouvelle Observateur, Jeune Afrique, al-Hayat and Sharq al-Awsat and with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Arab Center, and Oxford University.
Dr. Lawrence holds a Ph.D. in international affairs with specializations in Islamic Civilization; North African History, Politics, and Culture; Comparative Politics; Economic Development; and International and Islamic Law from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He holds two degrees in history from the University of Paris IV (Sorbonne) and a B.A. in history from Duke University.
He received six superior merit awards from the State Department, two medals from Egypt, and distinguished alumni awards from the Fenn School and Duke University. He is American Tunisian Association’s past president and board member and a Tangiers American Legation Museum fellow and helped found the Algerian-American Foundation for Culture, Education, Science and Technology. He also co-produced six North-Africa related films and fourteen albums of North African music.