Nasr, 51, will join the school July 1. He will be its eighth dean, succeeding Jessica P. Einhorn, who is retiring after a decade in the post.
Nasr is a recognized scholar who has been a foreign policy adviser to Democratic and Republican administrations, and a commentator on international relations, often seen on television and read in the op-ed pages of major newspapers.
Nasr is the son of Hossain Nasr, who was sent to the United States at the age of 13 in 1946. After completing his education in the United States, Hossain Nasr return to Iran where he eventually became president of Arya Mehr (now Sharif) University. His son was born in Tehran.
With the revolution of 1979, the family moved to the United States and the elder Nasr is now professor of Islamic studies at George Washington University in Washington, DC. He is the author of many books including a work on Shiism that has become the standard text on the field in the United States.
The younger Nasr has been a professor of international politics at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy since 2007. He is a member of the US State Department’s Foreign Policy Advisory Board. For two years, from 2009 until last year, he also served as special adviser to Richard Holbrooke, the late ambassador who was then the president’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Ronald J. Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins, said Nasr “has an excellent understanding of the challenges facing graduate schools of international studies, including SAIS, and an appreciation for the opportunities ahead. He is superbly qualified to meet those challenges and seize those opportunities.”
SAIS was founded in 1943 to prepare students to assume major responsibility in the postwar world. It became a part of Johns Hopkins University in 1950 and now has additional campuses in Bologna, Italy, and Nanjing, China.
Nasr is married to Darya Nasr, a technology executive. They have three children, sons Amir and Hossein and daughter Donia.