Ryan Crocker is a Diplomat in Residence at Princeton University. He is on a leave of absence from Texas A&M where he is an executive professor and former dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service. He was a career Foreign Service Officer who served six times as an American Ambassador: Afghanistan (2011-2012), Iraq (2007-2009), Pakistan (2004-2007), Syria (1998-2001), Kuwait (1994-1997) and Lebanon (1990-1993). Three of these appointments were under Republican Administrations and three under Democratic Administrations. He also served previously as the International Affairs Advisor at the National War College, where he joined the faculty in 2003. From May to August 2003, he was in Baghdad as the first Director of Governance for the Coalition Provisional Authority. He was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from August 2001 to May 2003. Since joining the Foreign Service in 1971, he also has had assignments in Iran, Qatar, Iraq and Egypt, as well as Washington. He was assigned to the American Embassy in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the bombings of the embassy and the Marine barracks in 1983.

He grew up in an Air Force family, attending schools in Morocco, Canada and Turkey, as well as the U.S. He received a B.A. in English in 1971 and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 2001 from Whitman College (Washington).He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award, in 2009. Other recent awards include the inaugural Bancroft Award, presented by the Naval Academy in 2016. Also in 2016, he was named an Honorary Fellow of the Literary and Historical Society at University College, Dublin where he was presented the annual James Joyce Award. He is an Honorary Marine.