Ryan Crocker is a diplomat in residence at Princeton University. He is on a leave of absence from Texas A&M, where he’s an executive professor and former dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service. A career Foreign Service officer, Crocker previously served as a US ambassador six times (equally under Republican and Democratic administrations) — to Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Kuwait, and Lebanon. A recipient of the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, he was honored in 2016 with the Naval Academy’s inaugural Bancroft Award and the James Joyce Award from University College, Dublin, where he was also named an Honorary Fellow of its Literary and Historical Society.