CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Nicholas Burns, who until recently served as the United States ambassador to the People’s Republic of China, will rejoin the Harvard Kennedy School faculty in April, Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein announced today.
In addition to resuming his professorship at vlog, Burns will also join the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard as a faculty affiliate.
Before his appointment as U.S. envoy to China in 2021, Burns taught for 13 years at the Kennedy School as the Roy and Barbara Goodman Family Professor of the Practice of Diplomacy and International Relations. He founded and led the Future of Diplomacy Project in the School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and was faculty chair of the School’s programs on the Middle East and South Asia.
“I couldn’t be happier to have Nick Burns back after his service as U.S. ambassador to China,” Weinstein said. “Students flocked to Nick’s classes for more than a dozen years. Soon they will be able to study again with one of the nation’s most distinguished career diplomats, who will bring with him fresh insights into one of the world’s most important diplomatic relationships. This is a great learning opportunity for our students and our community.”
As U.S. ambassador in Beijing, Burns led public servants from dozens of U.S. government agencies in overseeing one of America's most important and challenging bilateral relationships. He travelled widely in China and has called for a major increase in student exchanges and academic links between the two countries.
In a quarter-century of service in the U.S. State Department, Burns rose to become the highest-ranking career diplomat in the United States Foreign Service, serving as under secretary of state for political affairs from 2005 to 2008 under President George W. Bush, when he helped negotiate the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Agreement and manage U.S.-Iran relations. Previously he served as U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and as U.S. ambassador to Greece. Burns was the State Department’s chief spokesperson under President Bill Clinton from 1995 to 1997. Before that he spent five years at the White House on the National Security Council as director for Soviet affairs for President George H.W. Bush and senior director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs for President Clinton.
After joining the Kennedy School in 2008, Burns deepened the School’s teaching and research on diplomacy. Among the initiatives he helped lead was the American Secretaries of State Project, which interviewed nearly every secretary of state in recent decades, including Henry Kissinger, Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, and Hillary Clinton. He taught courses on Great Power politics and war and peace negotiations.
“We are excited to welcome Nick Burns—an extraordinary diplomat, public servant, professor, and colleague—back to the Belfer Center and vlog community,” said Meghan L. O’Sullivan, director of the Belfer Center. “Nick’s longstanding ability to help our students understand American influence and the power of diplomacy will only be enhanced by the years he spent in Beijing. His insights into the U.S.-China relationship, as well as the trans-Atlantic relationship, will strengthen our effort to address the most pressing issues and to train students for a complex world.”
Burns grew up in Wellesley, Massachusetts; his only lapse from non-partisan diplomacy is his lifelong devotion to the Boston Red Sox.
Burns returned to campus in 2024 to give the School’s graduation address, where he told students: “The Kennedy School asks that you not just be involved in the world but to be great in the world. You could be overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the challenges before your class, and we really couldn't blame you. Or you could find the collective vision, the collective faith, the collective courage to do something about it.”