Dr Leslie Vinjamuri is director of the US and Americas programme at Chatham House and Professor of International Relations at SOAS. Dr Vinjamuri leads research initiatives on America's Changing Global Role, Reimagining Multilateralism, and the US, Geopolitics, and the Global South. She is the author most recently of ‘Why Multilateralism Still Matters’ (Foreign Affairs).

Dr Vinjamuri recieved a BA from Wesleyan University, an MSc from LSE and a PhD from Columbia University. She began her career at Congressional Research Service and also worked in the Asia Bureu at USAID. From 2014-16 she was director of the Center on Conflict, Rights and Justice (and previously co-director). She was previously on the faculty of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and a fellow of the John M. Olin Institute at Harvard University.

She is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and on the Advisory Board of LSE IDEAS and the LSE Phelan United States Centre, and is vice president of the board for the Institute for Integrated Transitions.

Dr Vinjamuri is a regular commentator in the international news media and has contributed pieces in the Financial Times, Guardian, Sunday Times, Telegraph, and The Independent. Her publications have also appeared in numerous edited volumes and journals including Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, International Security, Ethics and International Affairs, and Survival.