Leah Pisar is a nonresident fellow with the Transatlantic Project in the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center and Middle East programs. She is an expert on transatlantic relations, US and European foreign policy, and engagement with the Middle East and North Africa region.

She began her career in public service in the Clinton administration, serving as director for communications at the National Security Council and at the US Department of State. She later directed programs at the French-American Foundation and was a visiting scholar at the Center for American Progress and the Institut Français des Relations Internationales. Since 2017, she has chaired Project Aladdin, an international initiative promoting mutual understanding among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Pisar also serves on the advisory councils of the IE New York College and ALIPH, as a trustee of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and has been a member of the Jury of the Zayed Award for Human Fraternity.

She holds a BA in government from Harvard College, an MA in political science from Sciences Po Paris, and a PhD in international relations from the University of Paris (Panthéon-Assas). Born and raised in Paris, she is a US citizen who speaks English, French, and Spanish fluently, and is proficient in Italian and Portuguese.