Dr. Robert A. Pastor is director of the Center for North American Studies (CNAS), Vice President of International Affairs and Professor of International Relations at American University (AU) in Washington, D.C. Dr. Pastor is responsible for providing direction for AU's expanding international programs and activities, including the establishment of ABTI-American University of Nigeria. In addition, he directs the Centers for Democracy and Election Management (CDEM) and for North American Studies (CNAS), drawing together teaching, research and service on key global themes for the 21st century: democracy and integration. The Center for North American Studies educates and conducts research about Canada, Mexico, and the United States with the aim of understanding and building a North American Community.

Dr. Pastor has combined a career of scholarship, teaching and public policy in government and in non-governmental organizations. From 1985 until coming to AU in 2002, Dr. Pastor was rofessor of political science at Emory University and fellow and founding director of the Carter Center's Latin American and Caribbean Program and the Democracy Project, where he developed the center’s election-monitoring efforts. At the Carter Center, he founded and served as the executive secretary of the Council of Freely-Elected Heads of Government, a group of 32 leaders of the Americas, chaired by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. He was the director of Latin American and Caribbean affairs on the National Security Council from 1977-81, was nominated by President Clinton to be ambassador to Panama in 1993 and was the senior advisor to the Carter-Nunn-Powell mission to Haiti that negotiated a peaceful restoration of constitutional government in 1994.

Dr. Pastor received his doctorate in political science from Harvard University and a Master in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Lafayette College, he served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia and in 1995 received the Sargent Shriver Humanitarian Service Award, the highest award for a returned Peace Corps volunteer. While at the National Security Council, he created the Humphrey Fellowship Program. He was a Fulbright Professor at El Colegio de Mexico and the Ralph Straus Visiting Professor at Harvard University. Dr. Pastor is the author or editor of sixteen books, including Toward a North American Community; Exiting the Whirlpool: U.S. Foreign Policy toward Latin America; and A Century’s Journey: How the Great Powers Shape the World.