Joseph Nye Full Bio

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Joseph S. Nye, Jr.
Dean, Kennedy School of Government

Joe Nye received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1958. He did postgraduate work at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. He joined the Harvard Faculty in 1964, and taught one of the largest core curriculum courses in the college. In December 1995, he became Dean of the Kennedy School.

He has also worked in three government agencies. From 1977 to 1979, Mr. Nye served as Deputy to the Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology and chaired the National Security Council Group on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In recognition of his service, he received the highest Department of State commendation, the Distinguished Honor Award. In 1993 and 1994, he was chairman of the National Intelligence Council, which coordinates intelligence estimates for the President. He was awarded the Intelligence Community’s Distinguished Service Medal. In 1994 and 1995, he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, where he also won the Distinguished Service Medal with an Oak Leaf Cluster.

A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Academy of Diplomacy, Mr. Nye has also been a Senior Fellow of the Aspen Institute, Director of the Aspen Strategy Group, and a member of the Executive Committee of the Trilateral Commission. He has served as a director of the Institute for East-West Security Studies, a director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a member of the advisory committee of the Institute of International Economics, and the American representative on the United Nations Advisory Committee on Disarmament Affairs. He has been a trustee of Wells College and Radcliffe College.

A member of the editorial boards of Foreign Policy and International Security magazines, he is the author of numerous books and more than a hundred and fifty articles in professional journals. His most recent books are Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004), and an edited volume, For the People: Can We Fix Public Service? (2003). In addition, he has published policy articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The International Herald Tribune, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times. He has appeared on programs such as ABC’s Nightline and Good Morning America, CNN’s Larry King Live, CBS’s Evening News, and The PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer, as well as Australian, British, French, Swiss, Japanese, and Korean television.

In addition to teaching at Harvard, Mr. Nye also has taught for brief periods in Geneva, Ottawa, and London. He is an honorary fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. He has lived for extended periods in Europe, East Africa, Central America, and traveled to more than 90 countries.

His hobbies include fly fishing, hiking, squash, skiing, gardening, and working on his tree farm in New Hampshire. He is married to Molly Harding Nye, an art consultant and potter. They have three grown sons.