Awardees

Dr. Fareed Zakaria is the 2024 speaker for the Distinguished Fulbright Lecture. He is the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, a columnist for The Washington Post, and a bestselling author. He has been nominated for several Emmys for his television work and has won one, along with the prestigious Peabody Award for his weekly CNN show. Since the debut of his show in 2008, it has featured interviews with several prominent figures including Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Emmanuel Macron. Zakaria has authored five highly-regarded New York Times bestselling books: Age of Revolutions (2024), The Post-American World (2008), The Future of Freedom (2003), Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World (2020), and In Defense of a Liberal Education (2015). Before his tenure at CNN, Zakaria served as an editor of Newsweek International, a managing editor of Foreign Affairs, a columnist for Time, an analyst for ABC News, and the host of Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria on PBS. Zakaria holds a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, a doctorate in political science from Harvard University, and many numerous honorary degrees.

Dr. Devi Sridhar spoke on the topic, “Preventing the Next Pandemic: What have we learned about international health collaboration and what needs to change?” In this lecture, Dr. Sridhar examined the historical roots of international collaboration in health and the subsequent creation of the World Health Organization in the aftermath of World War II. Yet, during the COVID crisis, Dr. Sridar described how world health cooperation broke down illustrated by divergent and nationally-driven strategies on COVID-response, vaccine nationalism and hoarding by rich countries, and tense political frictions over the origins of COVID-19. Dr. Sridhar offered insightful thoughts on how the world can learn from the past and better manage the next pandemic.

A video of the lecture is available on the US-UK Fulbright Commission’s website.

Fulbright Legacy speaker Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California, was joined by UK university leaders to discuss the timely topic of “Higher Education and the Public Good.” The wide-ranging discussion reflected on the results of a dedicated IPSOS Mori global survey on public attitudes towards higher education and covered topics from inequality and student debt, to international collaboration and alternative models of university education.

A video of the lecture is available on the Fulbright Commission’s website.

In his lecture titled “The New Arrogance of Power: Global Politics in an Age of Impunity,” Mr. Miliband examined the shift today in international relations away from checks and balances on the use of power, and towards an age of impunity. His explanation of how the rules-based international order forged after World War II is being undermined serves as an urgent call to preserve the rule of law and protect the most vulnerable. A video of the lecture delivered at Pembroke College, University of Oxford, is available on their website.

The eighth annual Fulbright Legacy Lectures were given by Lord Nicholas Stern, IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics and the Co-Chair of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. He spoke at King’s College London on June 4, followed by Edinburgh University on June 6, and Pembroke College Oxford on June 8, 2018. The theme of his lectures was “The best of centuries or the worst of centuries? Leadership, governance and cohesion in an interdependent world.” He argued that the international economic order, which J. William Fulbright helped to build after WWII, served fairly well for much of the second half of the twentieth century. If we are to avoid the grave we currently face, however—including climate change, pandemics and conflict—it must be re-cast for our increasingly interdependent world. Our success in doing this will determine whether the twenty-first century becomes the best or worst of centuries.

Lord Stern’s lecture was live streamed and has now been published on the website of Pembroke’ College.

The seventh annual Fulbright Legacy Lectures were given by Professor Louise Richardson, Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford. Through lectures at King’s College London on June 12, at Edinburgh University on June 14, and at Pembroke College, Oxford on June 16, 2017, Richardson addressed the roles of and challenges faced by universities in an age of increasing populism. Read her lecture online on the University of Oxford’s website.

Richardson completed her BA in History at Trinity College Dublin before coming to the U.S. to pursue graduate studies in political science at UCLA and Harvard University. As an award-winning professor, she has promoted interdisciplinary studies an the combination academic and creative pursuits. Her research focuses primarily on international security and counter-terrorism, and she has published numerous books addressing both issues, including Democracy and Counterterrorism: Lessons from the Past (2007), What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Enemy, Containing the Threat(2006), The Roots of Terrorism (2006), and When Allies Differ (1996).

Professor Michael Ignatieff of Central European University gave the sixth annual Fulbright Distinguished Lecture on June 10, 2016. His lecture, titled “The European Refugee Crisis: What is to be Done,” highlights a gap in understanding of the refugee crisis by international relations scholars and practical political discourse, and the vulnerability of asylum rights due to this gap. He further discusses the drivers of migration and plans for human refugee policy in Europe. View his full lecture online at the University of Oxford’s Website.

Michael Ignatieff is a distinguished professor, award-winning author, and former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada and the Party of Official Opposition within the Parliament of Canada. He has served as a professor at Harvard Kennedy School (2013), the University of Toronto (2012-2013), Centennial Chair for the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (2012-2015), and Edward R. Murrow Chair of Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School (2014-2016) prior to becoming President and Rector of Central European University. Ignatieff has also written on economic, political and historical topics as a contributing writer for The New York Times and Editorial Columnist for The Observer.

Jack Matlock has applied decades of experience with the US Foreign Service towards questions in public policy today, including lessons for leaders in his Fulbright Distinguished Lecture, titled “Managing the Crisis in Ukraine and Elsewhere,” held at Pembroke College, University of Oxford on June 12, 2015. Stream Matlock’s full lecture online at the University of Oxford’s Website.

Jack F. Matlock Jr. served as the United States Ambassador to Czechoslovakia (1981-1983) and the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union in the later years of the Cold War (1987- 1991). Since leaving the State Department, he has served as Professor at Columbia University (1991-1996), the Institute of Advanced Study (1996-2001) and held visiting appointments at Princeton University, Columbia University, Mount Holyoke College and Hamilton College. 

Historian Emma Rothschild spoke on the mid-twentieth century history of internationalism at the University of Edinburgh. Rothschild is the Jeremy and Jane Knowles Professor of History at Harvard and the director of the Joint Center for History and Economics at Harvard and Magdalene College, Cambridge. Her lecture took place on 21 May 2014 at Edinburgh University, where she received an honorary doctorate in 2013.

Economist Joseph E. Stiglitz (Columbia University) gave the fourth annual Fulbright Legacy Lecture on International Relations. His topic was the “Causes and Consequences of Growing Inequality—and what can be done about it” at Pembroke College, Oxford, and Kings College London. Stiglitz is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979) and a former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank.

In the third annual Fulbright Legacy Lectures, Harold Varmus spoke on “International Relations in Science and Medicine” at Kings College London, Edinburgh University and Pembroke College Oxford, where Senator J. William Fulbright studied from 1924-48. His talks expanded and elaborated upon themes discussed in his book, The Art and Politics of Science. Dr. Varmus is Director of the National Cancer Institute and a Nobel prize laureate.

Distinguished American senior statesman Ambassador Pickering spoke on the future of U.S. Middle East diplomacy at Pembroke College Oxford, Kings College London and Edinburgh University, in a talk entitled “From the Pillars of Hercules to the Hindu Kush.”

Dr. Slaughter spoke at Pembroke College Oxford on “The Turn: American Foreign Policy 2009- 2011.” At the time, she was the Kerstetter Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University and the former Director of Policy Planning and the U.S. State Department—the first woman ever to hold that position.