William Lawrence

William Lawrence is a senior academic and research fellow-in-residence and the director of the North African area studies program at the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations. He teaches at American University and across the U.S. government and previously served for years on the council’s International Advisory Committee and as its lead lecturer on North Africa. Lawrence lived and worked in six North African countries for 12 years and served as a senior diplomat, analyst, and program manager in the Middle East and North Africa 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, working with successive Republican and Democratic administrations on Muslim world outreach. He co-created the Global Innovation Through Science and Technology 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 1970s with Libya. He served as the North Africa team lead for the Middle East Partnership Initiative. 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 short 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 University, George Washington University, Tufts University, 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, France 24, 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 Asharq Al-Awsat and with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Arab Center, and Oxford University.

Dr. Lawrence holds a Ph.D. and MALD 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 the Egyptian government in 2011, 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 with the founding of the Algerian-American Foundation for Culture, Education, Science and Technology. He also co-produced six North-Africa related films and 14 albums of North African music, including the first internationally released Arab rap song.