Francis Fukuyama is Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political Economy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University, and director of SAIS' International Development program.

Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning democratization and international political economy. His book, The End of History and the Last Man, was published by Free Press in 1992 and has appeared in over twenty foreign editions. He is also the author of Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995), The Great Disruption: Human Nature and the Reconstitution of Social Order (1999), Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution (2002), and State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century, (2004). His most recent book is America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power, and the Neoconservative Legacy, published by Yale University Press in the spring of 2006.

Francis Fukuyama was born on October 27, 1952, in Chicago. He received his B.A. from Cornell University in classics, and his Ph.D. from Harvard in Political Science. He was a member of the Political Science Department of the RAND Corporation from 1979-1980, then again from 1983-89, and from 1995-96. In 1981-82 and in 1989 he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff of the US Department of State, the first time as a regular member specializing in Middle East affairs, and then as Deputy Director for European political-military affairs. In 1981-82 he was also a member of the US delegation to the Egyptian-Israeli talks on Palestinian autonomy. From 1996-2000 he was Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Professor of Public Policy at the School of Public Policy at George Mason University. He served as a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001-2004.

Dr. Fukuyama is chairman of the editorial board of a new magazine, The American Interest, which he helped to found in 2005. He holds honorary doctorates from Connecticut College and Doane College, and is a member of advisory boards for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the Journal of Democracy, and The New America Foundation. As an NED board member, he is responsible for oversight of the Endowment's Middle East programs. He is a member of the American Political Science Association, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Global Business Network. He is married to Laura Holmgren and has three children.