My name is Leslie Rogne Schumacher. I write, speak, and teach about history, foreign policy/IR, intelligence studies, and leadership. My research is on Mediterranean and MENA relations, migration and refugee studies, diplomacy and statecraft, defense challenges in the EU and Middle East, and the conflicts in national security over public diplomacy, classified information, and intelligence-gathering. Much of my work has centered on the concept of the East-West relationship and its related historical, international, intelligence, psychological, and military dynamics.

I serve in several posts at Harvard University. I teach international relations and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School (link), as well serve as a Faculty Affiliate in HKS’s Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs (link). I am also an Associate in Harvard’s History Department (link). I also often teach leadership and regional studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School (link). Additionally, I am a Regional Scholar in the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies at Cornell University (link) and a Senior Fellow in the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (link). Before coming to Harvard, I served as Director of the Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence at Wells College (link). I was the fourth David H. Burton Fellow at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, where I taught Middle Eastern, European, and global history and politics.

I live in Cambridge, MA with my wife Kaja J. Tally-Schumacher, who is Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Environmental History at Harvard GSD (link). I have also taught at SUNY New Paltz, Hamline University, and the Sant’Anna Institute in Sorrento, Italy. I was a Visiting Research Student at the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London’s School of Advanced Study in 2009, and a Visiting Student Fellow in the History Department at Harvard University in 2012. In May 2017, I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in honor of my work on refugee affairs in Greater Philadelphia. In February 2024, I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in honor of my 2023 book on the role of Middle Eastern culture and affairs in British diplomacy, society, and politics, titled The Eastern Question in 1870s Britain: Democracy and Diplomacy, Orientalism and Empire (link).

I have a forthcoming book on modern Mediterranean international relations under contract with Anthem Press, titled Transnational Nationalism in the Mediterranean Sea: Origins and Aftermaths (link). I have provided policy expertise on current political, economic, and security challenges in Europe and the Middle East to such venues as National Public Radio (link), Transatlantic Policy Quarterly (link), and War on the Rocks (link). I have also contributed timely pieces on: the role of the Middle East in European integration theory, in the Journal of European Studies (link); the legacy of Poland’s first post-communist president, Lech Wałęsa, in The New Islander (link); and, first, the foreign policy roots of the Tea Party and, second, historical precedents for the Edward Snowden affair, in History News Network (link 1, link 2). Other works include pieces on: European imperialism in the Eastern Mediterranean (link); the 1890s Armenian Massacres (link), and Italian refugees in British-controlled Malta in the early 19th century (link).

I provide service for many organizations, journals, and initiatives. I sit on the review panels of the Journal of Imperial & Commonwealth History, Diplomacy & Statecraft, Third World Quarterly, Turkish Historical Review, Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees, Romance, Revolution & Reform, Open Military Studies, Refugee Review, the Journal of Early Modern History, the Journal of Tourism History, Victorian Network, Studia Historyczne, Britain and the World, Akropolis: Journal of Hellenic Studies, and the Marmara Journal of European Studies.  For the last two, I also serve on their editorial boards. I am also a member of the International Association of Jesuit Universities’ Migration initiative. A champion high school debater and former debate team head coach, I am the university member on the board of the Pennsylvania State High School Speech and Debate League. In the same vein of public service, I also am the Academic Director of the Senior Leadership Program of the Great Books Summer Program at Haverford College (link).