Leslie Rogne Schumacher

@L_R_Schumacher

Non-Resident Senior Fellow - National Security Program

Research Areas

Imperialism, Nationalism, and Transnationalism in the Mediterranean and Middle East; Migration and Refugee Studies; EU Politics and Society; British Foreign Policy; and the Role of the Western Media in International Affairs.

Leslie Rogne Schumacher, PhD, FRSA, FRHistS is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s National Security Program. A scholar of Europe and the Middle East, he teaches international relations and public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Before moving to Cambridge, Dr. Schumacher served as Director of the Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence at Wells College, where he also taught history and international studies. Dr. Schumacher also holds positions in the History Department at Harvard, the Einaudi Center at Cornell University, and the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2017, he was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts for his civic engagement on refugee affairs. In 2024, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in recognition of his book, Democracy and Diplomacy, Orientalism and Empire: The Eastern Question in 1870s Britain.

Dr. Schumacher’s past and current work engages: imperial and national rivalry in the Mediterranean and Middle East; migration and refugee studies; the EU’s history and future, British foreign policy; public diplomacy, and the East-West relationship. He has published research on the Eastern Question and European integration theory, Britain’s Ionian protectorate, the 1890s Armenian massacres, and the future of BRICS+ in the Mediterranean Sea. His current book project, Bathing in Crests of Foam: A Study of the Modern Mediterranean in Five Parts, explores connections between land, sea, and sky in Mediterranean migration during the modern era.