Dr. John Waterbury is currently the Global Professor of Political Science in New York University (NYU) Abu Dhabi and was president of the American University of Beirut (AUB) from 1998-2008. He was the first president to reside in Beirut since 1984. He worked to restore American University to its place as an institution of higher learning meeting the highest international standards. He is the Former Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs for nearly twenty years. He has contributed to the study of the political economy of the developing world, especially the Middle East and North Africa, and is widely considered one of the leading political scientists of that region. Waterbury earned his PhD in public law and government at Columbia University in 1968 and went on to the University of Michigan as assistant professor of political science.