The Making of America’s Iran Policy with Dalia Dassa Kaye | Northwestern Fulbright Week 2027 Keynote & Reception

Join us for Northwestern University’s 2027 Fulbright Week Keynote with Dalia Dassa Kaye, PhD, a senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and a 2026-27 Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Perry World House, University of Pennsylvania. A life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and former International Affairs Fellow, Dassa Kaye is an internationally recognized expert on geopolitics and Middle East policy. Her work has been supported by the Luce Foundation and Smith Richardson Foundation, among others. She has held several positions at research and public policy institutions, including as the director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation and as a Fulbright Schuman visiting scholar at Lund University in Sweden. As a Fulbright scholar, she focused her research on shifting European perceptions and policies toward Iran, looking at the "Iran challenge" from a European and Swedish perspective during a period of global geopolitical flux in 2023–24. She is the author of dozens of articles and policy reports as well as three books, including most recently Enduring Hostility: The Making of America’s Iran Policy (Stanford University Press, 2026).

Enduring Hostility draws on original interviews with former government officials, oral histories, memoirs, congressional hearings, archival material, as well as Dassa Kaye's own participation in dozens of Iran-related track two meetings to explore how America's Iran policy is made, the people who make it, and the underlying ideas and perceptions that inform it. In her keynote, Dassa Kaye will look back at US policy toward Iran over the past four decades to help us look ahead, offering wider lessons for understanding American foreign policymaking and providing critical insights at a pivotal time of heightened military tensions in and around the Middle East. She will also share insights from her Fulbright research on European perspectives, underscoring the value of international scholarly exchange for understanding global challenges.

A reception will follow the program in celebration of Northwestern’s Fulbright Week (April 12–16, 2027), which offers faculty, students, and staff opportunities to learn about Fulbright grants, make new connections, and increase their chances of a successful application. Fulbright Week is organized by the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs and supported by the Office of Fellowships, Office of the Provost, and Office of the Vice President for International Relations. The Fulbright Program provides grants to thousands of students and scholars each year to travel abroad and conduct research, carry out professional projects, study, or teach. For 22 years, Northwestern University has been recognized as a top producer of Fulbright student awardees.

The keynote will begin at 4:00 p.m. A reception will begin at 5:15 p.m.

Please note that 720 University Place is not an ADA-accessible space. Increasing physical access to buildings and facilities is a goal of the University, but not all buildings and venues have been updated at this time.