Sanam Vakil

Sanam Vakil was appointed director of Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa programme in 2023. She was previously the programme’s deputy director and senior research fellow. She is also the James Anderson professorial lecturer in Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS Europe) in Bologna, Italy. She previously taught at SAIS Washington and served as a research associate at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is the author of Action and Reaction: Women and Politics in Iran.