Inside the Situation Room

Hillary Rodham Clinton has spent over five decades in public service as an advocate, attorney, First Lady, U.S. Senator, U.S. Secretary of State, and presidential candidate. As the 67th U.S. Secretary of State, her "smart power" approach to foreign policy repositioned American diplomacy and development for the twenty-first century. Clinton played a central role in restoring America's standing in the world, reasserting the United States as a Pacific power, imposing crippling sanctions on Iran and North Korea, responding to the Arab Awakening, negotiating a ceasefire in the Middle East, and championing human rights, democracy, and opportunities for women and girls. In her historic 2016 campaign for President of the United States, Clinton won sixty-six million votes. She is the author of eleven best-selling books, founder of the global production studio HiddenLight Productions, a producer of the Broadway musical Suffs, Chancellor of Queen's University Belfast, Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, and Faculty Advisory Board Chair of Columbia's Institute of Global Politics. Keren Yarhi-Milo is Dean of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Relations. She is a renowned scholar and leading authority on international security, foreign policy decision-making, and political psychology, and author of two award-winning books: Who Fights for Reputation: The Psychology of Leaders in International Conflict (Princeton University Press, 2018), winner of both the American Political Science Association's Foreign Policy Section Book Award and the International Studies Association's Best Foreign Policy Book Award; and Knowing the Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence, and Assessment of Intentions in International Relations (Princeton University Press, 2014), winner of the Edgar S. Furniss Book Award in International Security Studies. She has published extensively in leading academic journals as well as in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Yarhi-Milo serves as editor of the Princeton Studies in International History and Politics book series. In 2023, she cofounded the Institute of Global Politics at Columbia University with Secretary Clinton as a hub for interdisciplinary engagement on global challenges. Yarhi-Milo earned her PhD in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania.